Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization And Lexicalization In Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing

Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization
And Lexicalization In Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing
download
https://ebookbell.com/product/newest-trends-in-the-study-of-
grammaticalization-and-lexicalization-in-chinese-janet-zhiqun-
xing-5225006
Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.
Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization And Lexicalization In
Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing Editor
https://ebookbell.com/product/newest-trends-in-the-study-of-
grammaticalization-and-lexicalization-in-chinese-janet-zhiqun-xing-
editor-50265388
Newest Born Of Nations European Nationalist Movements And The Making
Of The Confederacy Ann L Tucker
https://ebookbell.com/product/newest-born-of-nations-european-
nationalist-movements-and-the-making-of-the-confederacy-ann-l-
tucker-47242590
Newest Novellas From Awardwinning Authors Moran Jan Green Crystal
Bazzi Annamaria Dannon Joanne
https://ebookbell.com/product/newest-novellas-from-awardwinning-
authors-moran-jan-green-crystal-bazzi-annamaria-dannon-joanne-9088920
The Newest Sappho P Sapph Obbink And P Gc Inv 105 Frs 14 Anton Bierl
https://ebookbell.com/product/the-newest-sappho-p-sapph-obbink-and-p-
gc-inv-105-frs-14-anton-bierl-5424698

The Newest Princess Melody Mews
https://ebookbell.com/product/the-newest-princess-melody-mews-48933726
Israelophobia The Newest Version Of The Oldest Hatred And What To Do
About It Jake Wallis Simons
https://ebookbell.com/product/israelophobia-the-newest-version-of-the-
oldest-hatred-and-what-to-do-about-it-jake-wallis-simons-53592850
Airports And The Newest Generation Of General Aviation Aircraft Volume
1 Forecast Spitz
https://ebookbell.com/product/airports-and-the-newest-generation-of-
general-aviation-aircraft-volume-1-forecast-spitz-4668428
Airports And The Newest Generation Of General Aviation Aircraft Volume
2 Guidebook Spitz
https://ebookbell.com/product/airports-and-the-newest-generation-of-
general-aviation-aircraft-volume-2-guidebook-spitz-4668434
Corporate Irresponsibility Americas Newest Export First Printing
Lawrence E Mitchell
https://ebookbell.com/product/corporate-irresponsibility-americas-
newest-export-first-printing-lawrence-e-mitchell-1682574

Newest Trends in the Study of Grammaticalization
and Lexicalization in Chinese

Trends in Linguistics
Studies and Monographs 236
Editor
Volker Gast
Founding Editor
Werner Winter
Editorial Board
Walter Bisang
Hans Henrich Hock
Heiko Narrog
Matthias Schlesewsky
Niina Ning Zhang
Editor responsible for this volume
Volker Gast
De Gruyter Mouton

Newest Trends in the Study
of Grammaticalization and
Lexicalization in Chinese
Edited by
Janet Zhiqun Xing
De Gruyter Mouton

ISBN 978-3-11-025299-6
e-ISBN 978-3-11-025300-9
ISSN 1861-4302
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
” 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Typesetting: RoyalStandard, Hong Kong
Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
⬁ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany.
www.degruyter.com

Table of contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Janet Zhiqun Xing
The development of the Chinese aspectual sentence-final
marker yě . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Qianrui Chen
The emergence of a definite article in Beijing Mandarin:
The evolution of the proximal demonstrative zhè . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Mei Fang
The grammaticalization of the directional verb ‘lái’: A construction
grammar approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Cheng-hui Liu
The degree-evaluative construction: Grammaticalization in
constructionalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Mei-Chun Liu and Chun Chang
The semantic historical development of modal verbs of volition
in Chinese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Alain Peyraube and Ming Li
Semantic change in the grammaticalization of classifiers in
Mandarin Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Janet Zhiqun Xing
The repeater in Chinese and other languages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Cheng Zhang
Lexicalization in the history of the Chinese language. . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Xiufang Dong
Argument structure change, reanalysis and lexicalization:
Grammaticalization of transitive verbs into ditransitive verbs in
Chinese, Japanese and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Feng-fu Tsao
Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Introduction1
Janet Zhiqun Xing
In the last three decades, the study of grammaticalization and lexicaliza-
tion has generated tremendous interest among Western researchers who
study Indo-European and African languages. As a result, more than two
dozen monographs and edited volumes have been produced (e.g. Heine
and Reh 1984, Heine et al. 1991, Traugott and Heine 1991, Hopper and
Traugott 2003 [1993], Heine 1993, Bybee et al. 1994, Lehmann 1995, Ramat
and Hopper 1998, Heine and Kuteva 2002, Wischer and Diewald 2002,
Traugott and Dasher 2002, Bisang et al. 2004, Fischer et al. 2004, Brinton
and Traugott 2005, Echardt 2006, Lopez-Couso and Seoane 2008, Good
2008). Most of these works study grammaticalization on the premise that
it is a unidirectional process or change whereby a lexical item or a con-
struction has undergone a change and consequently serves a grammatical
function. The major issues raised by those studies are related, but not
limited, to the sources/origins, motivations, mechanisms, pathways, and
targets/outcomes of grammaticalization. Many of these studies focus on
the morpho-syntactic process of change, for instance, whether a lexical
item has become cliticized, a‰xized, and then fossilized (e.g. Heine and
Reh 1984, Heine et al. 1991, Lehmann 1995). Many others probe the patterns
of semantic change that accompany morpho-syntactic change (e.g. Traugott
and Dasher 2002, Visconti 2004, Echardt 2006). Nonetheless, what most
of these studies have in common is that they are based on data from either
Indo-European or African languages. Naturally, the patterns or tendencies
1. This collection of articles has been made possible in part by funding provided
by the O‰ce of Research and Sponsored Programs, Western Washington
University. On behalf of all the contributors, I would like to thank Walter
Bisang and Sandra Thompson for their enthusiastic support and encourage-
ment of the initial proposal for this project. We are all very grateful to the
anonymous reviewer for his/her meticulous review of the entire manuscript
and constructive suggestions for revision. Our gratitude also goes to Randi
Hacker and the readers from Mouton for commenting on and proofreading
all the chapters in the volume and to Birgit Sievert for her support throughout
the process of this project. Without their help, it would have been impossible
to complete this project.

of semantic change, grammaticalization, and lexicalization generated from
those studies reflect specific characteristics of the relevant languages,
because even though the languages of these families (e.g. African languages
vs. European Languages) may share some linguistic features, each language
or language family has its own unique history and evolutionary process.
Taking African languages as an example, we know that Heine and his
associates’ earlier studies on grammaticalization were mostly based on the
internal reconstruction of the languages in this family because there was no
recorded history of their development. In comparison, English does not
have the gap or lack of evolutionary history that African languages exhibit.
However, throughout its history, it has been heavily influenced by other
European languages. As a result it is di‰cult to determine whether certain
changes in English are natural or coerced (e.g. via language contact, cf.
Heine and Kuteva 2008). For instance, one of the major shifts in English
occurred during the transition from Old English to Middle English when
the language lost most of its agreement markers (e.g. case), which led
English to change from an inflectional language to a more analytical one.
Presumably, such a change would a¤ect the pathways and mechanisms of
semantic change and grammaticalization. This type of unique history of a
language or language family undoubtedly contributes to the typological
characteristics of its later stages, like Middle English and Modern English.
Therefore, we cannot say with any degree of certainty that those patterns
and tendencies that are derived from English or African languages apply
to other genetically unrelated languages, such as Chinese or Burmese,
without studying grammaticalization in these languages in depth.
Chinese, on the other hand, is clearly a language that has hardly been
studied by western researchers with regard to grammaticalization and
lexicalization. In the past three decades, we have seen only a few disserta-
tions (e.g. Sun 1996, Xu 2006) published for English-speaking communities
but no edited volume on this topic.2 The reason for this is probably twofold:
2. As far as I know, there are currently only two edited volumes on the market
related to some of the issues discussed in this collection: Chinese Grammar:
Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives by Hilary Chappell (Oxford University
Press 2001) and Space in Languages of China: Cross-Linguistic, Synchronic
and Diachronic Perspectives by Dan Xu (Springer Science 2008). However,
Chappell’s collection focuses on dialectal variations and Xu’s collection
primarily discusses issues related to the syntactic aspects of spatial terms
in Chinese. They do not overlap with the theme of our volume, namely, the
characteristics of Chinese in the three areas of diachronic change: semantic
change, lexicalization, and grammaticalization.
2 Janet Zhiqun Xing

Western researchers are not familiar with the Chinese language and their
Chinese counterparts are not familiar with the theoretical framework devel-
oped in the West. Consequently, neither group feels comfortable in tackling
such issues, even though both groups are aware that Chinese is typol-
ogically di¤erent from Indo-European languages, and moreover exhibits
a rich and uninterrupted body of historical data (i.e. recorded history of
more than 3000 years without major typological shifts such as those having
occurred in English.) Because of the facts mentioned above, Chinese has
a clear advantage over Indo-European languages and African languages
when it comes to the study of grammaticalization.
The first example of a study on grammaticalization in Chinese that
attracted Western linguists’ attention is perhaps Li and Thompson’s (1974)
study on the change of word order involving bǎ, a lexical item which under-
went a change from a full-fledged transitive verb to an object marker in a
serial verb construction (i.e. NP þ bǎ þ NP þ V). This study not only pro-
vides convincing evidence for syntagmatic change in grammaticalization,
but also sheds light on the typological characteristics of syntagmatic change
in Chinese. That is, in a language with serial verb constructions where verbs
are not marked for tense, number, case, etc. verbs may become grammati-
calized into function words more easily than they can in languages with
agreement marking (i.e. tense, number, case, etc.). This assumption, as
shown in the following section, is supported by the pattern of semantic
change in grammaticalization observed in Chinese.
1. Regularity in semantic change
According to studies conducted by Western researchers (Heine et al. 1991:
74 and Traugott and Dasher 2002: 11–12), semantic change triggered by
metaphoricalization and metonymization in grammaticalization develops
along the following cline: A > A,B > (B), where A stands for an early
lexical semantic function from which a new meaning B – a polysemy (not
necessarily a new grammatical category) – has been derived and coexists
with the earlier meaning A. Over time, meaning A may gradually become
obsolete leaving only the newly developed polysemy B in use, and later the
polysemy B may become obsolete as well. Such a tendency for semantic
evolution seems applicable to most cases of grammaticalization in English
and other inflectional languages (Heine et al. 1991, Traugott and Heine
1991, Bybee et al. 1994, Heine and Kutiva 2002, Good 2008). In Chinese,
however, study after study shows a di¤erent pattern (e.g. Liu 1989; Ma
Introduction 3

1993, 2002; Peyraube 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1992, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 1998;
Shi Z. 1989; Shi and Li 2001; Sun 1996; Wang 1980 [1956]; Xing 2003,
2009; Xu 1992; Zhang 1991; etc.). It has been observed that semantic
change in the grammaticalization of Chinese lexemes undergoes a process
of ‘accretion’ of meanings, i.e. A > A,B > A, B, C, in which the multipli-
cation from a conceptual entity A to A, B, C ﬁrst goes through an inter-
mediate stage (A,B) where the older meaning (A) and the newer meaning
(B) co-exist. Then the older meaning (A) or the newer meaning (B) may
continue to develop and extend their meaning to (C), a new conceptual
entity. As a result, all of the three entities may co-exist. This cline,3 or
rather this tendency of semantic change in Chinese, is clearly di¤erent from
the one reported by Western researchers, i.e. A > A,B > (B). The key dif-
ference between the two developments lies in the last stage, where Chinese
allows a co-existence of multiple conceptual entities (i.e. polysemies), whereas
Western researchers forecast the ‘‘recessive’’ nature and possible complete
disappearance of the original meaning (Traugott and Dasher 2002: 11).4
I have argued in di¤erent case studies (e.g. Xing 2003, 2004, 2006,
2009) that the reason why semantic functions in Chinese evolve by way
of an accretion of meanings over time is primarily attributable to the iso-
lating nature of the Chinese language structure at three di¤erent levels:
morphology, syntax and discourse.
At the morphological level, all Chinese characters are represented by
one immutable written form, beyond which they simply cannot be reduced
3. It should be noted that of the three generalizations (i.e. expansion, reduction,
and metaphorical extension) of semantic change traditionally discussed by
Chinese grammarians (e.g. Gao Mingkai 1942), reduction appears to provide
evidence that contradicts the pattern of accretion discussed here. However,
if we examine the examples used to demonstrate the reduction of meaning
by those grammarians, it becomes obvious that almost all examples are solid
words (i.e. nouns and verbs) which do not undergo grammaticalization, and
are thus not comparable to the cases examined in this study. Therefore, they
are not counter-examples. When discussing semantic change, Wang Li (1980:
537564) also indicates that the pathway of semantic change in Chinese is:
A > A,B > B. Again, if we look at the examples, we ﬁnd the same situation
with the reduction just mentioned.
4. The English verb ‘have’ seems to behave more like Chinese lexemes that have
undergone grammaticalization than those that follow the evolutionary cline
suggested by Western researchers. In modern times, ‘have’ has multiple seman-
tic functions including: 1) possessive verb – ‘‘I have a computer’’; 2) perfective
aspect – ‘‘I have bought a computer’’; and 3) modal auxiliary – ‘‘We have to go’’.
4 Janet Zhiqun Xing

unless they are systematically simplified through a language reform. In
addition, two or more characters/words, especially those that have under-
gone grammaticalization, cannot merge into one character/word5 as they
can in alphabetical languages (e.g. ‘going to > gonna’; ‘you all > y’all’,
etc.), nor is it likely that new characters will be created by rearranging
di¤erent strokes, as can be done anagrammatically in alphabetical lan-
guages, e.g. ‘‘lead’’, ‘‘deal’’, ‘‘lade’’, and ‘‘dale’’ in English. But most im-
portantly, there is no agreement marking in Chinese with respect to the
grammatical categories like number,6 case, gender, tense, mood, etc. As a
result, the same noun form (i.e. character) can be used as subject/agent or
object/patient and the same verb form (character) can be used as a main
verb, a serial verb, a complement, an adverb, an adjective, a conjunction,
or a preposition. Furthermore, a verb can also be used as a noun and
vice versa, e.g., huı̀ 會 and lián 連 illustrated in (1) and (2). In comparison,
nouns and verbs in English are not likely to behave in the same way as
shown in example (3) using ‘even’.7 It appears that the unmarked word
structure in Chinese permits flexibility and relative freedom in the inter-
pretation of nouns and verbs consequently leading to the co-existence of
multiple polysemies.
(1) huı̀’s 會 various functions
a. NOUN: ‘meeting’
至會所, . . . , 以遇禮相見。(2nd Century AD: Kongzi Jiayu)
zhı̀ huı̀ suǒ, . . . , yı̌ yù lı̌ xia#ng jiàn.
arrive meeting place, as-to meet ritual each-other meet
‘They arrived at the meeting place, . . . so as to meet them politely.’
5. This does not include those words that were created by combining two char-
acters such as bú zhèng 不正 ‘not straight’ for wa#i 歪, or nü
ˇ zı̌ 女子 ‘female
child’ for hǎo 好 ‘good’.
6. The only plural marking in Chinese is the su‰x, mén 們, which attaches to
singular pronouns, wǒ 我 ‘I’, nı̌ 你 ‘you’, and ta# 他/她 ‘he/she’ among others
(i.e. péngyǒumen 朋友們).
7. There are some lexemes in Modern English that can be used as both a verb
and a noun, such as ‘report’, ‘cause’, ‘experience’ etc. In addition, lexemes
that can be used as both nouns and verbs undergo a stress change e.g., PERmit
for the noun, perMIT for the verb. However, when they are used as nouns,
they have to be marked for number and/or definiteness. When they are used
as verbs, they have to be marked for tense, aspect or mood.
Introduction 5

b. VERB: ‘to meet’
在禮，卿不會公侯，會伯子男. . . (1st Century BC: Zuo Zhuan)
zài lı̌, qı #
ng bù huı̀ go#ng-hóu, huı̀ bó-zı̌-nán
for etiquette o‰cial not meet ranking-o‰cial meet low-ranking
‘For the sake of etiquette, the o‰cial could not meet the [high]
ranking o‰cials but could meet the low-ranking o‰cials.’
c. SERIAL VERB: ‘meet þ verb’
知戰之日，則可千里而會戰。(4th Century AD: Sunzi)
zhı # zhàn zhı # rı̀, zé kě qia#n lı̌ ér huı̀ zhàn.
know battle poss day, then may thousand kilometer then meet ﬁght
‘Knowing the date of the battle, we can go a thousand miles to
meet and ﬁght.’
d. AUXILIARY: ‘might’
汝向後也會去住。(10th Century AD: Zutangji)
rǔ xiàng hòu yě huı̀ qù zhù.
2sg toward late also possible to stay
‘You can also go and stay (there) later.’
e. SERIAL VERB/COMPLEMENT: ‘verb þ perceive’
小學是直理會那事；(12th Century AD: Zuzi Yulei)
xiǎoxué shı̀ zhı́ lı̌ huı̀ nà shı̀;
basic-classics is direct understand perceive det issue
‘Primary learning means to directly understand and learn that issue.’
f. COMPLEMENT: ‘verb þ learnt’
小尼姑也都學會了年紀卷經咒 (17th Century AD: Honglou Meng)
xiǎo nı́gu# yě do#u xué huı̀ le niánjı̀ juàn jı #
ng-zhòu
young nun also all learn get asp number volume Buddhist-doctrine
‘All the junior nuns have also learnt a number of volumes of
Buddhist doctrine.’
(2) lián’s 連 various functions
a. VERB: ‘to connect’
根下相連 (7th Century AD: Bianwen)
ge#n xià xia#ng lián.
root under each-other connect/join
‘Roots underneath connect with one another.’
6 Janet Zhiqun Xing

b. VERB/ADJECTIVE: ‘continuing/continuous’
皇帝. . . 看之，連聲便喚。(7th Century AD: Bianwen)
huáng-dı̀ . . . kàn zhı #
, lián she#ng biàn huàn.
emperor see it connect/consecutive voice then call
‘When the emperor saw it, he repeatedly called . . .’
c. ADVERB: ‘continously’
梵人連忙前來。(7th Century AD: Bianwen)
Fán rén lián máng qián lái.
name people connect/consecutively busy forward come
‘The Turkish people came forward in a hurry.’
d. PREPOSITION: ‘including/with’
久住則連肉爛也。(Liu 1989: 452, 12th Century AD)
jiǔ zhù zé lián ròu làn ye.
long stay then including flesh rotten asp
‘If it were kept long, it would become rotten, including the flesh.’
e. CONJUNCTION: ‘even’
衆人轟然一笑，連賈珍也撐不住笑了。
(17th Century AD: Honglou Meng)
zhòng-rén ho#ng-rán yı́-xiào, lián Jiǎ-Zhe#n yě che#ng-bú-zhù xiào le.
everyone suddenly laugh even name also neg-help laugh asp
‘Everyone burst into laughter; even Jia Zhen laughed.’ or
‘Everyone burst into laughter and Jia Zhen could not help
laughing either.’
(3) even’s various (historical) functions (the examples are quoted from OED)
a. ADJECTIVE: Eeuen/eauen: flat (of a land/ground), smooth,
direct, exact, equal
Me thinkes the ground is eeuen. (1605, Shakespeare’s Lear)
b. VERB: Euenen: to level (ground), to even out
Law, whose end is, to euen and right all things (1851, Sidney’s Apol)
He hath now evened all his reckonings. . . (1664, Pepys’ Diary)
c. ADVERB: Euene/evene/even: evenly
as the rest goes euen (1601, Shakespeare’ Twel)
Introduction 7

At the sentence level, since tense, number, gender and case are not
marked in Chinese, the semantic and pragmatic relationships between syn-
tactic units (i.e. NP þ VP þ NP þ NP) are not as evident as they are in
languages with those markings. As a result, a NP preceding a verb (bèi 被
or jiào 叫) can be interpreted as either an agent or a patient, depending on
the meaning of the main verb (prototypical verbs in a passive construction
expressing some kind of adversative meaning) and the overall meaning
of the sentence, as shown in (4)–(5). Such flexibility of NP interpretation
means that the verb in a sentence can be easily coerced into an interpreta-
tion that fits the contextual meaning of the whole sentence. This is not
possible in languages with clear markings for case, tense and/or mood.
(4) a. Noun preceding bèi as an agent
月被其光而明。(12th Century AD: Zhuzi Yulei)
yuè bèi qı́ gua#ng ér mı́ng
moon receive its light then bright
‘The moon becomes bright when receiving its light.’
b. Noun preceding bèi as a patient
阿孃被問來由，不覺心中歡喜。(7th Century AD: Bianwen)
a#-nián bèi wèn lái-yóu, bùjué xı #
nzho#ng hua#nxı̌
nanny pass ask come-reason, not-feel heart-middle happy
‘When the nanny was asked for the reason, she could not help
feeling happy.’
(5) a. Noun preceding jiào as an agent
他爸爸叫他修理一下那輛自行車。
ta# bàba jiào ta# xiu#lı̌ yı́xià nà liàng zı̀xı́ngche#.
3sg father ask 3sg fix bit det cl bicycle
‘His father asked him to fix the bicycle.’
b. Noun preceding jiào as a patient
他叫那條狗咬了一口。
ta# jiào nà tiáo gǒu yǎo le yı# kǒu.
3sg pass det cl dog bite asp one bite
‘He was bitten by that dog.’ or ‘He got bitten by that dog.’
At the discourse level, Chinese sentences are arranged by such logical
relations as sequential order and cause/reason–result, as illustrated by
8 Janet Zhiqun Xing

jiù’s functions in (6). Such ‘fixed’ discourse structures, a characteristic of
isolating and analytic languages, coincide with Kiparsky’s (1997, 2008:
24) reflection on the characteristic of inflectional languages that ‘‘the loss of
inflectional morphology entails fixed order of direct nominal arguments.’’
I argue that the fixed discourse structure in Chinese plays an indis-
pensible role in the development of two functions of the lexeme jiù 就,
namely, its discourse function of connecting two sequential events as in
(6a) and (6b), and its function of connecting two logically related events
as shown in (6c)–(6e) (cf. M. Liu 1993, 1997). Certainly, jiù’s lexical
meaning ‘to approach’ may also be a factor contributing to its discourse
function. However, the discourse structure appears to be instrumental in
the development of its discourse function.
(6) a. Sequential:
. . . , 欲遣就師。(3rd Century AD: Sanguo Zhi)
. . . , yù qiǎn jiù shı #
.
want dispatch approach master
‘(Someone) wants to approach the master.’
b. Sequential:
虎賁舁上殿就坐。(3rd Century AD: Sanguo Zhi)
hǔbe#n yú shàng diàn jiù zuò.
commander carry up throne approach/then seat/sit
‘The commander was carried up to the throne to sit down.’
c. Condition–Result:
施薪若一，火就燥也; . . . 。 (1st Century BC: Xunzi)
shı # xı #
n ruò yı #
, huǒ jiù zào yě, . . . .
add hay like one, fire approach/then dry part
‘(If you) add one piece of hay, the fire will die.’
d. Reason–Result/sequential
資復遜位歸第，就拜驃騎將軍，(3rd Century AD: Sanguo Zhi)
zı #fù sùnwèi guı # dı̀, jiù bài biáoqı́ jia#ngju#n,
leader resign return home, then pay-visit horse-riding commander
‘(If/when) the leader resigns and returns home, then (he) will pay a
visit to the commander.’
Introduction 9

e. Reason–Result
遇富貴，就富貴上做工夫；(12th Century AD: Zhuzi Yulei)
yù fùguı̀, jiù fùguı̀ shàng zuò go#ngfu#;
run-into rich-honorable, then rich-honorable on do diligently
‘(If you) run into someone rich and honorable, then work
accordingly hard.’
We have seen that all three levels, morphology, syntax, and discourse,
leave room for Chinese lexemes to be used/interpreted/reanalyzed some-
what di¤erently by speakers/listeners. As a result, various polysemies have
developed and co-exist at the modern stage of language development, a
conclusion also supported by Bisang’s (2008: 586) study of Archaic Chinese,
which shows that a lexical item in a given position is coerced into a partic-
ular semantic interpretation associated with that position. Arguably, if
Chinese had agreement markers, it probably would not be common for a
noun to function as a verb, an agent to be interpreted as a patient, or for a
verb to be interpreted as an adjective, adverb, preposition or conjunction.
If that were the case, the semantic change in Chinese would probably
follow the cline suggested by Heine et al. (1991) and Traugott and Dasher
(2002).
Another factor that appears to have accompanied and somewhat
a¤ected the development of polysemies in Chinese is the process of lexical-
ization. It is well documented in Chinese linguistic literature (cf. Peyraube
1988, Feng 1999, Dong 2002, and Dong in this volume) that disyllabic
words and serial verb constructions emerged during the Han Dynasty
(2nd Century BC–2nd Century AD) and became well established in the
Tang Dynasty (7th–9th Century AD). Xing (2009) reported that among
the 23 lexemes that have undergone grammaticalization, all had a tendency
to be paired up with other lexical items to form disyllabic words after the
Six Dynasties period (4th Century AD). Taking guò 過 as an example, we
can easily ﬁnd disyllabic lexemes or words built from the monosyllabic
guò 過 in the course of its development, as shown in Table 1.
Notice that some of these words have inherited guò’s original verbal
meaning ‘pass’ or its earlier nominal function ‘mistake’,8 whereas others
were derived from guò’s later developed polysemies ‘over, celebrate’.
8. The nominal function of guò 過 ‘mistake’, as pointed out by the anonymous
reviewer, was already attested in Classical Chinese (11th Century BC–220 AD)
and should be accounted for in some of the compounds developed later, such
as zuı̀guo ‘crime mistake’, with a loss of guò’s lexical tinge.
10 Janet Zhiqun Xing

These lexicalized disyllabic words commonly used in modern texts not
only provide evidence of guò’s polysemous functions but also reinforce
those functions in modern communication. In other words, once guò is
combined with another lexeme (be it a verb þ object or verb þ complement
combination) and becomes a frequently used lexical item, it is likely to be
in use for a long time before it undergoes further change.
In this volume, more evidence will be provided to illustrate the patterns
of semantic change, grammaticalization, and lexicalization in Chinese.
2. Summary of the contributions to this volume
The purpose of this volume is to provide an overview of recent develop-
ments in the study of grammaticalization and lexicalization in mainland
China and Taiwan for English-speaking communities in the west. There
are nine articles included in this volume, all of which are empirical studies
based on diachronic and/or synchronic data, and all of which discuss
issues relevant to either the characteristics of grammaticalization or lexical-
ization in Chinese or the typological patterns of the Chinese language in
comparison to other languages. The nine articles are divided into two
parts: Part I centers primarily on issues of grammaticalization and Part II
Table 1. Lexicalized words with guò 過
Char. pinyin gloss English
過火 guòhuŏ over ﬁre ‘overdone’
過活 guòhuó pass life ‘to live’
過去 guòqù pass go ‘to go over’
過節 guòjié celebrate festival ‘to celebrate a festival’
過門兒 guòménr pass door ‘to marry into a family’
過錯 guòcuò over mistake ‘fault’
過目 guòmù pass eye ‘to look over’
過失 guòshı # pass miss ‘wrong doing’
錯過 cuòguò miss pass ‘to miss’
難過 nánguò di‰cult pass ‘sad’
不過 búguò not pass ‘but’
罪過 zuı̀guò crime mistake ‘sin’
Introduction 11

focuses on lexicalization. Following is a brief summary of each of the nine
articles arranged alphabetically according to the author’s last name.
In Chapter 1, Chen investigates the development of sentence-final yě 也
based on historical data. According to him, yě has had two aspectual
functions in the history of Chinese literary works: static and dynamic.
There are two di¤erent views on their relationship, viz., whether the latter
represents an extension of the former or whether there is any relationship
between the two at all. Using historical data as evidence, Chen first defines
the static yě 也 in non-judgment sentences as a stative element and then
argues that the emergence of dynamic yě 也 is derived from static yě 也,
consistent with an established pattern of the grammaticalization of perfect
markers in Chinese and some other languages.
In Chapter 2, Fang studies the discourse and pragmatic functions of
the proximal demonstrative zhè 這 and the distal demonstrative nà 那 in
Contemporary Beijing Mandarin. The results of this study show that the
definite article was derived from the demonstrative zhè through its recog-
nitional use, a process that is accompanied by the emergence of the use of
yı #一 ‘one’ as an indefinite article. She argues that such a functional shift
from a demonstrative to a definite article is a clear case of grammaticiza-
tion, a term she uses to ‘‘refer to a process whereby an item is entering the
grammar of a language synchronically and may become fixed and con-
strained in distribution’’ (cf. Hopper and Traugott 1993: XVI). As a result,
a new grammatical category, definiteness, has emerged in Contemporary
Beijing Mandarin, even though this pattern, as she points out, is not yet
observed in written Mandarin Chinese.
In Chapter 3, Liu investigates the various syntagmatic functions of the
directional verb lái 來. By providing resolutions to confusing cases as well
as preventing erroneous assumptions about lái’s grammaticalization, Liu
concludes that the constructionist view seems the only available perspec-
tive to explain why láiVERB 來 has remained vital over such an extra-
ordinarily long period of time (from the 6th Century BC to the present),
without being obviously influenced by all the changes related to it. She
argues that the reason for lái’s long life may be that the form of the verb
remains at all times a free morpheme and change takes place only after the
form has stepped into specific constructions and deviated from its original
form.
In Chapter 4, Liu and Chang explore one type of attributive predication
in Mandarin Chinese in which a degree modifier (e.g. hěn 很 ‘very’) is
normally required to precede an attributive predicate. Adopting a con-
structional approach, Liu and Chang suggest that the attributive pattern

‘Degree þ X’ can be re-analyzed as a Degree-Evaluative Construction where
the degree marker is taken to be the constructional operator and the follow-
ing element X, whatever it is, contributes a quality or attribute that is
inferred. Through discussion of the interaction between grammaticaliza-
tion and constructionalization, the authors demonstrate that the adverbial
element hěn triggers the constructional interpretation and becomes gram-
maticalized into a constructional operator.
In Chapter 5, Peyraube and Li investigate three categories of volitional
verbs in Chinese written texts from as early as the Pre-Classical period
(11th–2nd Century BC) to the Medieval (4th–6th Century AD) and Modern
periods: Category I: expressing the meaning of yuànyı̀ 願意 ‘be willing to’;
Category II: expressing the meaning of xı #wàng 希望 ‘hope’ and Category
III: expressing the meaning of yùwàng 欲望 ‘intention’. By tracing their
origins and following their processes of semantic change, the authors come
to the conclusion that volitional verbs have evolved in three di¤erent
ways: 1) from intentional to future meaning, 2) from weak volition to
strong volition, and 3) from concrete physical meaning to abstract mental
meaning. They argue that modals that originally expressed the meaning of
‘intention’ (i.e. Category III) are the only ones that can become gramma-
ticalized into future markers. It is less likely, if not impossible, that the
other two types will evolve in this way because of their unique semantic
and syntactic properties.
In Chapter 6, Xing studies the emergence, development, and disappear-
ance of classifiers in Mandarin Chinese by investigating the semantic
changes involved in the grammaticalization of 16 of the most commonly
used Modern Chinese numeral classifiers. She provides historical evidence
showing that three mechanisms – metaphor, metonymy, and semantic
reanalysis – play an important role in the emergence and development of
classifier meaning while in the disappearance of classifiers, loss of semantic
function and high frequency have been shown to be major contributing
factors. She argues that the numeral classifier meaning is derived from
the ‘numeral þ NP’ construction and not the other way around and con-
cludes that such an evolution of meaning provides evidence for the inter-
action between the construction’s form and grammaticalization.
In Chapter 7, Zhang provides diachronic and synchronic evidence to
refute the view that the repeater is the earliest numeral classifier in Sino-
Tibetan languages. She argues that since the original meaning or the
construction where the repeater is used is not compatible with that of
the classifier, it is unlikely that the numeral classifier is derived from the
repeater. In addition, she suggests that the repeater disappeared before
Introduction 13

1100 B.C. in Chinese, which provides little evidence to support the claim
that the numeral classifier is the origin of the repeater. She claims that the
reason why researchers believe the repeater and the classifier to be related
is that the repeater happens to be the most convenient way to express the
grammatical category of ‘classifier’. She also suggests that numeral classi-
fiers emerged and developed quite abruptly in Late Archaic Chinese (200
B.C.–200 A.D.).
In Chapter 8, Dong discusses various issues related to the characteristics
and processes of lexicalization in Chinese. First she demonstrates di¤erent
types of lexicalization observed in the history of the Chinese language (e.g.
from lexical phrases to words, from functional phrases to words, from
syntactically unrelated word strings to words), then she discusses the degree
of lexicalization, the constraints on lexicalization, the relation between
syntactic change and lexicalization, and the interaction between Chinese
typology and lexicalization. She concludes that lexicalization, like gram-
maticalization, is a naturally occurring change and thus is pervasive which
can be seen very clearly from data in the history of the Chinese language.
She points out that lexicalization might have idiosyncratic and language-
specific features that are not, as yet, well understood by scholars and
therefore, further research on the relationship between the characteristics
of lexicalization and language typology is necessary.
In Chapter 9, Tsao investigates the change of the argument structure,
re-analysis and lexicalization of gěi 給 ‘give’ from a transitive verb to a
ditranstive verb in Chinese. By analyzing the relationship between the
distribution of gěi and the verbal clauses that occur in a ditransitive con-
struction, Tsao singles out three patterns: (1) gěi is optional in ditransitive
constructions involving a verb of transference; (2) only three classes of
transitive verbs, namely verbs of acquisition like mǎi ‘buy’, verbs of move-
ment like re#n ‘throw’, and verbs of creation like zào ‘build’, can enter into
the ditransitive construction; and (3) in order for that to happen, a verb
of the above-mentioned classes has to go through a process of gramma-
ticalization or lexicalization such as serial-verb-construction condensation
or adjunct incorporation. Then he compares gěi’s development with its
counterparts in Japanese and English and finds that its Japanese counter-
part undergoes the serial-verb-construction condensation while its English
counterpart undergoes adjunct incorporation.
From the summaries of the nine articles given above, it is evident that
all the studies rely heavily on empirical data for their analyses, generaliza-
tions, and conclusions. Notice that among the nine articles, five focus on
the issue of a certain grammatical category, such as the emergence of the

definite article (Fang), the development of modal verbs of volition (Peyraube
& Li), the emergence of the classifier class (Xing), the disappearance of the
repeater (Zhang), and the process of lexicalization (Dong), while the re-
maining four articles are case studies of unique grammatical words which
have all undergone a complicated process of grammaticalization: the
sentence particle yě (Chen), the versatile directional verb lái (Liu), the
degree adverb hěn (Liu and Chang), and the verb of giving gěi (Tsao).
Even though these studies do not have a uniform theoretical orientation
or rely on the same implications (e.g. some prefer the framework laid
out by Construction Grammar; others apply either syntactic pathways or
semantic mechanisms of grammaticalization to their analyses), they all
attempt to identify the characteristics of diachronic change in Chinese. In
addition, some of them have revealed certain typological characteristics in
Chinese and have compared them with the typological characteristics of
other languages.
All the articles are important contributions to the corpus of work on
diachronic change in the Chinese language and all are designed to expand
the understanding of Western scholars interested in the history of the
Chinese language. We of course hope that the subjects discussed in these
articles will inspire other researchers to do further research and thus
extend the field.
References
Bisang, Walter
2008 Precategoriality and syntax-based parts of speech – the case of
Late Archaic Chinese. Studies in Language 32: 568–589.
Bisang, Walter, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, and Björn Wiemer (eds.)
2004 What Makes Grammaticalization? A Look from its Fringes and its
Components. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Brinton, Laurel J. and Elizabeth C. Traugott
2005 Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bybee, J., R. Perkins, and W. Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the
Languages of the World. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Chappell, Hilary (ed.)
2001 Chinese Grammar: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Introduction 15

Chappell, Hilary (ed.)
2008 Sinitic Grammar: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives. Oxford:
Dong, Xiufang
2002 Cı́huı̀huà: Hànyǔ Shua#ngyı #
n Cı́ de Yánshe#ng hé Fa#zhǎn [Lexical-
ization: The Development of Chinese Disyllabic Words]. Chengdu:
Sichuan Mingzu Chubanshe.
Eckardt, Regine
2006 Meaning Change in Grammaticalization: An Enquiry into Semantic
Reanalysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feng, Shengli
1999 Hànyǔ Yùnlü
` Jùfǎ Xué [Prosodically Constrained Syntax in Chinese.]
Shanghai: Jiaoyu Chuban She.
Fischer, Olga, Muriel Norde, and Harry Perridon (eds.)
2004 Up and Down the Cline – The Nature of Grammaticalization.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gao, Mingkai
1942 Zho#ngguó yǔ de yǔyı̀ biànhuà [Semantic change in Chinese.]
Tia#nwéntái [Almanac], No. 2.
Good, Je¤ (ed.)
2008 Linguistic Universal and Language Change. Oxford, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Kiparsky, Paul
1997 The rise of positioning licensing. In Parameters of Morphosyn-
tactic Change, Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent (eds.),
260–294. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kiparsky, Paul
2008 Universals constrain change; change results in typological gener-
alizations. In Good (ed.), 23–53.
Kuteva, Tania
2004 Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heine, Bernd
1993 Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization. Oxford:
Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva
2008 Constraints on contact-induced linguistic change. Journal of
Language Contact THEME II, pp. 57–90.
Heine, Bernd and Mechthild Reh
1984 Grammaticalization and Reanalysis in African Language. Hamburg:
Helmut Buske.
Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer
1991 Grammaticalization: A conceptual Framework. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.

Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva
2002 World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hopper, Paul and Elizabeth C. Traugott
1993 Grammaticalization. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Hopper, Paul and Elizabeth C. Traugott
2003 Grammaticalization. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lehmann, Christian
1986 Grammaticalization and linguistic typology. General Linguistics
26, No. 1: 3–23.
Lehmann, Christian
1995 Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Liu, Jian
1989 Shı̀lùn ‘hé’ zı̀ de fa#zhǎn, fùlùn ‘gòng’ zı̀ hé ‘lián’ zı̀ [The develop-
ment of hé ‘and’ and the development of gòng ‘together’ and lián
‘even’.] Zhongguo Yuwen [Chinese Language] 6.
Liu, Mei-chun
1993 Discourse, Grammar, and Grammaticalization: Synchronic and
Diachronic Analyses of Mandarin Adverbial Markers jiù and cái.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder.
Liu, Mei-chun
1997 From motion verb to linking element: discourse explanations for
the grammaticalization of jiù in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of
Chinese Linguistics 25:2: 258–289.
Ma, Beijia
1993 Jiècı#‘tóng’ de chǎnzhe#ng [The emergence of the preposition tong
‘same as’.] Zhongguo Yuwen [Chinese Language] 2.
Ma, Beijia
2002 Jı̀ndài hànyǔ jiècı́ [Prepositions in Modern Chinese.] Beijing:
Zhonghua Shuju.
Mara Jose Lopez-Couso and Elena Seoane
2008 Rethinking Grammaticalization: New Perspectives. Philadelphia/
Amsterdam: John Bejamins.
Peyraube, Alain
1988 Syntactic change in Chinese: On grammaticalization. Bulletin of
the Institute of History and Philology, Vol. LIX, Part III, 617–
652. Taipei: Academic Sinica.
Peyraube, Alain
1989a History of the comparative construction in Chinese from the 5th
century BC to the 14th century AD. Proceedings on the Second
International Conference on Sinology, 589–612. Taipei: Academic
Sinica.
Introduction 17

Peyraube, Alain
1989b History of the passive constructions in Chinese until the 10th
century. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Vol. 17, No. 2: 335–371.
Peyraube, Alain
1989c Zǎoqı# bǎ zı̀ jù de jı̌ge wèntı́. [Several questions on the early bǎ
construction.] Zhongguo Yuwen [Chinese Language] 1.
Peyraube, Alain
1992 History of some coordinative conjunctions in Chinese. Paper
presented at the First International Conference on Chinese Lan-
guages and Linguistics. Singapore, June 24–26, National Univer-
sity of Singapore.
Peyraube, Alain
1994a On the history of Chinese locative prepositions. Chinese Lan-
guages and Linguistics 2: 361–87.
Peyraube, Alain
1994b New reﬂections on the history of the accusative forms in ba in
Chinese. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 23, 265–277.
Peyraube, Alain
1996 Modal auxiliaries of volition in Ancient Chinese. Paper presented
at the Symposium on Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives on
Grammar of Sinitic Languages. University of Melbourne.
Peyraube, Alain
1998 On the modal auxiliaries of possibility in Classical Chinese.
Selected Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Chinese
Linguistics. Taipei: The Crane Publishing Co. Ltd.
Ramat, Anna Giacalone and Paul J. Hopper (eds.)
1998 Limit of Grammaticalization. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Ben-
jamins.
Shi, Ziqiang
1989 The grammaticalization of the particle le in Mandarin Chinese.
Language Variation and Change 1, 99–114.
Shi, Yuzhi and Na Li
2001 Hànyǔ Yǔfǎhuà de Lı̀chéng [The Process of Grammaticalization
in Chinese.] Beijing: Beijing University Press.
Sun, Chaofen
1996 Word Order Change and Grammaticalization in the History of
Chinese. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Traugott, Elizabeth C. and Bernd Heine (eds.)
1991 Approaches to Grammaticalization, Volumes 1–2. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Traugott, Elizabeth C. and Richard Dasher
2002 Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Wang, Li
1980 Hànyǔ Shı̌gǎo [Chinese Grammar.] Revised ed. Beijing: Zhonghua
Shuju.

Wischer, Ilse and Gabriele Diewald (eds.)
2002 New Reﬂections on Grammaticalization. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Visconti, Jacqueline
2004 Conditionals and subjectiﬁcation: Implications for a theory of
semantic change. In Fischer, Olga et al. (eds.), 169–192.
Xing, Janet Z.
2003 Grammaticalization of verbs in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of
Chinese Linguistics, Vol. 31:1, 101–144.
Xing, Janet Z.
2004 Grammaticalization of lián in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of
Historical Pragmatics 5.1: 81–106.
Xing, Janet Z.
2006 Mechanism of semantic change in Chinese. Studies in Language,
Vol. 30:3, 461–483.
Xing, Janet Z.
2009 Regularity in semantic change in grammaricalization in Chinese.
Paper presented at the Linguistic Series, English Department,
National Taiwan Normal University, March 30.
Xu, Dan
1992 Hànyǔ lı̌ de ‘zài’ hé ‘zhe’ [The aspect markers zài and zhe in
Chinese.] Zhongguo Yuwen [Chinese Language] 6.
Xu, Dan
2006 Typological Change in Chinese Syntax. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Xu, Dan
2008 Space in Languages of China: Cross-linguistic, Synchronic and
Diachronic Perspectives. New York: Springer Science.
Zhang, Wangxi
1991 ‘Bǎ’ zı̀ jiěgòu de yǔyı̀ jı́qı́ yǔyòng fe#nxi [Semantic and pragmatic
functions of the bǎ construction.] Yuyan Jiaoxue yu Yanjiu [Lan-
guage Teaching and Research] 3.
Introduction 19

The development of the Chinese aspectual
sentence-final marker yě*
Qianrui Chen
1. Introduction
This paper studies the development of two aspectual functions of sentence-
final yě 也 in the history of Chinese literary works. Both Lü ([1942] 1982:
276) and Wang (1989: 306) suggest that in Classical Chinese, sentence-
final yě is static as in (1), while sentence-final yı̌ 矣 is dynamic as in (2).
The static function is realized as a judgment in sentence (1), whereas the
dynamic function indicates a change of situation in sentence (2).
(1) 是社稷之臣也。(5th Century BC, Lúnyǔ)
Shı̀ shèjı̀ zhı # chén yě.
This country POSS o‰cial PART
‘This person is an o‰cial of the country.’
(2) 今日病矣, 余助苗长矣。(3rd Century BC, Mèngzı̌)
Jı #nrı̀ bı̀ng yı̌, yú zhù miáo zhǎng yı̌.
Today sick PART I help seedling grow PART
‘Today the seedlings are withered. I helped them to grow.’
Current studies have noticed that in Medieval Chinese and Early Modern
Chinese,1 yě 也 also has a dynamic function expressing the ‘‘result of a
* This research is sponsored by the National Social Science Foundation of
China (No. 08BYY050). I am most grateful to Professor Shaoyu Jiang who
provided me with guidance, valuable comments and suggestions. In the paper,
some constructive suggestions were also o¤ered by Professor Hongming Zhang,
Professor Fuxiang Wu, Professor Bo Hong, Professor Rongxiang Yang, Pro-
fessor Chirui Hu and the anonymous reviewers. The Chinese version, in which
part 4 was deleted, was published in Zho#ngguó Yuü
ˇwén [Studies of the Chinese
Language] 2008(1). The author is solely responsible for all errors that remain.
1. This paper adopts Fang (2004)’s framework on the division of the history
of the Chinese language: Archaic Chinese (prior to the 1st Century BC),
Medieval Chinese (1st–6th Century), Early Modern Chinese (from 7th Century
to 18th Century).

change’’, as shown in the examples in (3), cited from Ohta ([1958] 1987:
353) and Cao (1987: 14). In (3) the functions of yě 也 are similar to that
of sentence-ﬁnal le了 in Modern Chinese and the present perfect pattern
‘‘have þ -ed’’ in English.
(3) a. 天下已有主也。(3rd Century, So#ushénjı̀)
Tia#n xià yı̌ yǒu zhǔ yě.
Heaven under already have master PART.
‘The kingdom already has its lord.’
b. 旦书至也, 得示为慰。(3rd Century, Zátiě)
Dàn shu# zhı̀ yě,
Morning letter arrive PART
dé shı̀ wéi wèi.
receive read as comfort
‘The letter arrived in the morning and reading the letter
comforted me.’
c. 石贤者来也, 一别二十余年。(4th Century, Yo#umı́nglù)
Shı́xián zhě lái yě,
name PART come PART
yı # bié èrshı́ yú nián.
one apart twenty over year
‘Shixian has come; I have not seen him for over 20 years.’
From the examples given above, it can be seen that there exist two oppo-
site uses of yě 也 in Chinese history, namely, a static and a dynamic one,
which raises the question of how the two usages developed. One view, the
Sound-record Hypothesis, is represented by Ohta Tatsuo, who suggests
that the two yěs 也 are not in any way related to each other. Ohta (1987:
353) argues that dynamic yě 也 perhaps originates from the dynamic
particles yı̌ 矣 or yı̌ 已 ‘already’ because, in oral expression, the sound [i]
矣 or 已 changed to [ia] by attaching the popular particle [a] 阿. There-
fore, yě 也 was needed to express a dynamic function and was used to ﬁll
this gap. Following Ohta, Shimura (1995: 98–99) points out that it is
not clear how the sound [ia] evolved to be used as a dynamic particle and
therefore this issue needs to be explored further.
The other view, the Extension Hypothesis, is represented by Luo (1994),
Sun (1999: 46) and Dai (2006), who suggest that dynamic yě 也 is an
extension of static yě 也. Luo (1994) claims that in Early Modern Chinese
22 Qianrui Chen

yě 也, expressing static a‰rmation or judgment, extended its function to
express a change of state. Sun (1999: 46) demonstrates that the scope of
the use of yě 也 has been expanding since Medieval Chinese (from the
1st Century to the 6th Century). However, neither Luo nor Sun comments
on Ohta’s view. Comparing Shimura’s (1984) and Sun’s (1999: 46) views,
Dai (2006) partially supports Sun’s idea, saying that yě’s 也 dynamic use
is an extension of yě’s 也 earlier grammatical function.
1.1. The two hypotheses and their problems
Yang’s study (1991) supports the Sound-record Hypothesis using evidence
from historical phonology and the Minnan dialect in Chinese. She also
points out (1991: 237) that Ohta does not give any reasons for the attach-
ment of [a] 阿 to [i] 矣 or 已. In the same paper, Yang makes an attempt
to explain the reason why yı̌ 矣 might have been read as [ia] in oral
Chinese during the Medieval period, which might, in turn, have caused
yě 也 to be used to represent the sound of the particle expressing the
dynamic function. Yang’s (1991) main argument is that, in the Minnan
dialect, there is a similar sentence-final a 阿 which is said to have arisen
from yı̌ 矣. However, Yang (1991) also recognizes that both yě 也 and
yı̌ 矣 in the Minnan Dialect contain the vowel [a], and are thus similar to
sentence-final a 阿. Therefore, it is premature to interpret dynamic yě 也
as having a phonetic origin.2
As for the Extension Hypothesis, Dai (2006: 209) demonstrates that
this hypothesis is primarily based on the Tiantai dialect of the Zhejiang
province, China. By examining the origin of the perfect marker [a] 啊 in
the Tiantai dialect, Dai infers that [a] 啊 was the result of the reduction
of yě 也 and originated from Medieval Chinese dynamic yě 也. Thus, a
semantic relationship between the dynamic yě 也 of Medieval Chinese
and the aspectual marker a 啊 in the modern Tiantai dialect can be estab-
lished, though a relationship between the dynamic yě 也 of Medieval
Chinese and the static yě 也 of Archaic Chinese is not suggested.
At this point, it is clear that the argument for the rise of dynamic yě 也
based on historical phonology and dialectal analyses is not quite persua-
sive and that the support from semantic and grammatical functions is
rather weak. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the issue more systemat-
ically and from a more theoretical point of view.
2. During interviews, Professor Bo Hong did not agree with the Sound-record
Hypothesis and its explanation; Professor Fuxiang Wu confirmed that the
two uses of yě 也 are actually related.
The development of the Chinese aspectual sentence-final marker yě 23

1.2. Inspiration from aspectual typology
The theory of aspectual typology may shed some light on this study. Ac-
cording to Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994: 105), the anterior or perfect
aspectual marker has generally developed from three lexical sources: 1)
auxiliary verbs like be and have; 2) verbs denoting the meaning of coming;
and 3) verbs denoting the meanings of finishing and moving. The path of
development of auxiliary verbs runs from resultative to anterior, then on
to perfective or past tense.
The resultative, commonly composed of an auxiliary verb and the past
particle in Indo-European languages, denotes a state that resulted from
some action in the past. Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994: 63) illustrate
how this works in English using the ‘‘be þ -ed’’ construction. The sentence
He is gone refers to the situation that he is no longer here. Therefore, the
sentence He is gone and has come back already is not well accepted. In
comparison, the anterior is formed by ‘‘have þ -ed’’ in English. The sen-
tence He has gone only indicates the current relevance of the action that
happened in the past (perhaps he came back again). Thereby the sentence
He has gone and come back already is acceptable grammatically and the
anterior ‘‘have þ -ed’’ is extended from the resultative ‘‘be þ -ed’’.
The dynamic use of yě 也 in Medieval Chinese and Early Modern
Chinese is much more similar to that of sentence-final le了 in Contem-
porary Chinese. With regard to the aspectual function of the latter, it has
been labeled a ‘‘sentence-final aspectual particle’’, anterior or perfect (Cao
1995: 96, Li, Thompson, and Thompson 1982). In Archaic Chinese (prior
to the 1st Century BC), the function of yě 也 in its static use was mainly
to express a judgment analogous to the original meaning of be in English.
Other usages of static yě 也 are similar to the resultative one and indicate
a state which will be explained in the following section. Dynamic yě 也,
therefore, coincides with the perfect aspect in English not only in its lexical
source but also in the path of its grammaticalization.
When explaining Bybee and Dahl’s approach, Dahl (2000: 7) defines the
basic units of investigation as grams and notions like tense, aspect and
mood as ways of characterizing the semantic content of grams, therein
observing the semantic content and diachronic change of the gram. Based
on this approach, this study aims to demonstrate the typological charac-
teristics of the aspectual marker yě 也 in Archaic Chinese and to examine
the process of development from static yě 也 to dynamic yě 也 in com-
parison with the grammaticalization of the perfect aspect in English. It
will then go on to explore the typological significance of the aspectual
uses of yě 也.
24 Qianrui Chen

2. The aspectual use of yě 也 in Archaic Chinese
(prior to the 1st Century BC)
The usage of yě 也 in Archaic Chinese is rather complicated. This paper
examines only the two uses of yě 也 as an assertive-sentence-final particle
defined as ‘‘static’’ and ‘‘dynamic’’.
2.1. Static yě 也 in Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese is the form of written Chinese that was in use from
Archaic Chinese (prior to the 1st Century BC) to the early 20th Century
when it was replaced by vernacular written Chinese. It follows the standards
of classical works in Archaic Chinese, and has been studied thoroughly for
a long time. Lü ([1944] 2002: 226–227) classified yě 也, when used at the
end of assertive sentences or narrative sentences in Classical Chinese, into
three types. The first type is defined as ‘‘the mood of judgment’’ to account
for inclusiveness, as shown in (4)–(5). ((4)–(12) are cited by Lü (2002) as
examples in Classical Chinese):
(4) 医者, 意也。(7th Century, Qı #
anjı #
n Yı #
fa#ng)
Yı # zhě, yı̀ yě.
Doctor PART awareness PART
‘One who is a doctor must be aware.’
(5) 孺子可教也。(Chinese Idiom)
Rú zı̌ kě jiào yě.
Child son be-able-to teach PART
‘This child is can be taught.’
The second use of static yě 也 is defined as ‘‘the mood of explanation’’
to account for states of a¤airs or a cause, a result or a purpose involving
some state of a¤airs as shown in (6) and (7).
(6) 南方多没人, 日与水居也。(11th Century, Rı̀yù)
Nánfa#ng duo# mò rén, rı̀ yǔ shuı̌ ju# yě.
South more down person day with water dwell PART
‘In the south, more people are drowned because they live close
to water.’

(7) 古之人与民偕乐, 故能乐也。(4th Century BC, Mèngzı̌)
Gǔ zhı # rén yǔ mı́n xié lè,
Ancient POSS person with people together entertain
gù néng lè yě.
therefore can happy PART
‘(Since) the ancient people always enjoyed life with the commoners,
they were happy.’
The third use of static yě 也 is defined as ‘‘the mood of resolution
( jia#njué 坚决)’’ to stress the meaning of the whole sentence, as shown
in (8) and (9).
(8) 环滁皆山也。(11th Century, Zuı̀we#ngtı́ng Jı̀)
Huán Chú jie# sha#n yě.
Surround city-name all mountain PART
‘Chu city is surrounded by many mountains.’
(9) 虽当世宿学, 不能自解免也。(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Suı # da#ngshı̀ sùxué,
Although current knowledgeable-person
bù néng zı̀ jiě miǎn yě.
not can self solve relieve PART
‘Even knowledgeable people cannot avoid being ridiculed.’
Yě 也 in (4) expresses a typical mood of judgment. In the typical judg-
ment sentence, the semantic function of yě 也 coincides with shı̀ 是 ‘be’ in
Modern Chinese as well as with the verb to be in English.
According to her theory of situation types which include stative, activity,
accomplishment, achievement and semelfactive, Smith (1991: 38) considers
a construction with a judgment verb and its main arguments a stative
situation with static and durative properties, but without telic properties.
He (1992: 135–159) further subclassifies the stative situations into five
states: 1) the absolute, such as have, belong to, etc.; 2) the non-absolute,
such as more, snow-white, green, etc.; 3) the existential, like stand, lie,
etc.; 4) the habitual, such as he smokes; and 5) the mental, such as love,
believe, etc. Based on He’s classifications, static yě 也 as in (4) belongs to
the first type of stative situation – the absolute state.
In (4) the predicate is nominal but in (5) it is verbal. He (2004: 421)
suggests that yě 也 following the verbal predicate conveys the speaker/
writer’s judgment of the characteristics, significance, and the intention of
a person or issues represented by the subject of the sentence.
26 Qianrui Chen

As for the second use of yě 也, the mood of explanation, it is reason-
able to consider the relationship between a cause and a result clause one
of relational judgment. If this is acceptable, it becomes easier to under-
stand the property of stativeness of the cause-result clauses. It should be
noted that a predicate followed by yě 也 expressing the mood of explana-
tion is primarily verbal.
Existential sentences embody the stative property in many languages
(e.g. the use of be and have in English.) As for the third type of yě 也 in
(8), it can be viewed as expressing redundant information and/or reinforc-
ing information, but it does not express judgement of the predicate. Nega-
tive sentences expressed by bù 不 ‘‘not’’ or wèi 未 ‘‘not yet’’ clearly refer
to a stative situation. According to Pulleyblank ([1995] 2006: 128–129),
the appearance of yě 也 at the end of a wèi 未 ‘not yet’ sentence is a clear
indication of its function as a marker of a continuing state.
Examples given by Lü (2002: 226–227) of the third type of yě 也
sentence, those expressing resolution, instantiate stative situation types.
According to He (1992), the sentences in (10), (11) and (12) correspond
to the habitual stative, the mental stative and the non-absolute stative
respectively. This seems to suggest that ‘‘the mood of resolution’’ is better
described as ‘‘the mood of stressing a stative situation’’.
(10) 今者项庄拔其剑, 其意常在沛公也。(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Jı #nzhě Xiàngzhua#ng bá qı́ jiàn,
Now name pull-out its sword
qı́ yı̀ cháng zài Pèigo#ng yě.
his intention always towards name PART
‘Now Xiangzhuang pulled out his sword, his intention all along to
assassinate Peigong.’
(11) 不患人之不己知, 患不知人也。 (5th Century BC, Lúnyǔ)
Bú huàn rén zhı # bù jı̌ zhı #,
Not worry people POSS not self understand
huàn bù zhı # rén yě.
worry not understand people PART
‘Don’t worry that others don’t understood us, worry instead that
we don’t understand others.’

(12) 子灿又尝见其写市物帖子, 甚工于楷书也。
(17th Century, Dàtiézhuı # Zhuàn)
Zı̌càn yòu cháng jiàn qı́ xiě shı̀ wù tiězi,
Name again once see him write market stu¤ poster
shèn go#ng yú kǎishu# yě.
very be-adept at standard-style PART
‘Zican had seen him write market posters. He was skillful with the
Standard style.’
Three common uses of yě 也 which include the mood of judgment, the
mood of explanation, and the mood of stressing a stative situation, are all
related to a stative situation and their functions appear to demonstrate
di¤erent levels of grammaticalization. This is the reason why the analysis
provided in this paper is based on Lü (2002)’s classiﬁcation of yě 也 in
Classical Chinese. Nedjalkov and Jaxontov (1988: 3–6) deﬁned ‘‘state’’ as
one of the basic properties for predicates, di¤ering from action and quality.
However, the term stative is applied to forms that include both grammatical
verb forms and derived verbs to denote states. States are not necessarily
expressed by specially marked verb forms. The meaning of state may also
be expressed by simple, non-derived verbs like to sit and to sleep, some
adjectives like sick, open and ready, and predicative adverbs like afraid,
aware and asleep etc. All those words whose base form or entire paradigm
expresses a state may be termed ‘lexical statives’. Therefore, the properties
of a predicate, in Nedjalkov & Jaxontov’s view (1988), are similar to the
situation types described by Smith (1991: 38). In other words, Nedjalkov
& Jaxontov’s (1988) state corresponds to Smith’s (1991: 38) stative situa-
tion, and the term ‘‘stative’’ in Nedjalkov & Jaxontov (1988) is used in a
rather di¤erent sense.
A resultative expresses a resultant state with a previous action being im-
plied, while a stative expresses the state of a thing without any indication
of its cause. As to the di¤erence between resultative and stative, Nedjalkov
& Jaxontov (1988: 7) point out that it is not always easy to distinguish
between the two because they share many important properties. Nedjalkov
& Jaxontov (1988) suggest that all forms expressing states of either kind
be united under the term ‘‘resultative’’ or ‘‘resultatives in a broad sense’’,
covering both resultatives and statives. Whenever necessary, the form ex-
pressing a resultant state implying a previous action is called the ‘‘resulta-
tive proper’’ or ‘‘resultative in a narrow sense’’.
28 Qianrui Chen

Therefore, we conclude that the first type of static yě 也 in a judgment
sentence can be defined as a lexical stative, but not as an aspectual
marker. The third type of static yě 也 may be defined as a marker of
stative aspect which developed from the first type of static yě 也 (cf.
Pulleyblank 1995). Furthermore, it is likely that the second type of static
yě 也 in an explanation sentence is used as a bridge between the first and
the third type and is defined as a stative marker that helps to shift the
predicative function to the causal or resultative function indicating a state.
2.2. Dynamic yě in Archaic Chinese (prior to the 1st Century BC)
Wang ([1798] 2000: 44) indicates that sometimes yě 也 can be defined as
dynamic yı̌ 矣; thus yě 也 and yı̌ 矣 are interchangeable, as exemplified
by Wang (2000: 42) and Yang ([1928] 1986: 333) in (13)–(16)
(13) 从我于陈蔡者, 皆不及门也。(5th Century BC, Lúnyǔ)
Cóng wǒ yú Chén Cài zhě, jie# bù jı́ mén yě.
Follow I arrive country-name PART, all not reach door PART
‘All those who followed me from Chen to Cai did not reach the
door (and meet the required standard).’
(14) 散军而郊射, 左射狸首, 右射驺虞, 而贯革之射息也。
(1st Century BC, Lı̌jı̀)
Sǎn ju#n ér jia#o shè,
Dismiss army CONJ outskirt shoot
zuǒ shè Lı́shǒu, yòu shè Zo#uyú,
left shoot song-name, right shoot song-name
ér guàn gé zhı # shè xı # yě.
CONJ pierce leather POSS shoot cease PART
‘Dismiss the army and hold a shooting competition on the outskirts
(of the city); for those shooting on the left, play the song of Lishou;
for those shooting on the right, play the song of Zouyu, thus the
shooting which is to pierce the leather of the army can cease.’
(15) 刑罚行于国, 所诛者乱人也。
如此则民顺治而国安也。
Xı́ng fá xı́ng yú guó,
Criminal law apply in country
suǒ zhu# zhě luàn rén yě.
PART kill PART disrupt person PART

Rú cı̌ zé mı́n shùn zhı̀
Like this therefore people obey govern
ěr guó a#n yě.
CONJ country peaceful PART
‘Apply a law to kill outlaws in a country; if this is done, the people
will obey the government and there will be peace in the land.’
(16) 且夫栾氏之诬晋国久也, . . . 若灭栾氏, 则民威矣。
(4th Century BC, Guóyǔ)
Qiě fu# Luánshı̀ zhı # wu# Jı̀n
CONJ MODEL surname POSS deceive country-name
guó jiǔ yě, . . . ruò miè Luánshı̀,
country long PART CONJ execute name
zé mı́n we#i yı̌.
so people boost PART
‘Additionally Luanshi has deceived the country of Jin for a long
time. . . . If the Luanshi family is executed, the people’s spirits will
be boosted.’
However, this deﬁnition of yě 也 and yı̌ 矣 is not completely correct.
For example, Ma (2005: 453) disagrees that yě 也 in (13) can be replaced
by dynamic yı̌ 矣. While yě 也 in (13) is static indeed, other sentences may
have a dynamic reading. The properties of the verbs in (14) are the most
important reason why Wang (2000: 42) and Yang (1986: 333) both agree
on the interchangibility of yě 也 and yı̌ 矣. In (14), the verb xı #息 ‘cease’
expresses an achievement situation with the properties [–static], [–durative]
and [þtelic]. In (15), although the verbs shùn 顺 ‘obey’ and a#n 安 ‘stable’
can express a stative situation, the hypothesis clause pattern rúcı̌, zé . . .
yě 如此, 则 . . . 也 ‘like this . . . therefore’ often introduces the result of a
change. What makes it clearer is that in (16) the temporal word jiǔ 久
‘long’ indicates an obvious change of time.
Based on the aforementioned evidence, this paper argues that speciﬁc
reasons that have led to the di¤erent understandings of yě 也 should be
examined when explaining the connections between them.
One of the important parameters in examining the degree of gramma-
ticalization of the aspectual marker is the analysis of the situation types of
the verb or verb phrases which co-occur with the marker. In the following,
the semantic characteristics of the predicate in the examples collected will
30 Qianrui Chen

be discussed.3 The Archaic Chinese corpus used for this paper includes
Zuǒzhuàn 左传, Lúnyǔ 论语, Guóyǔ 国语, Lı̌jı̀ 礼记, Zhua#ngzı̌ 庄子,
and Shı̌jı̀ 史记. Due to the high frequency of yě 也 in historical texts, it
is impossible to examine all possible sources.
2.2.1. Dynamic yě 也 in clauses whose verbs convey the meaning of death
One third of the examples from the database used in this study contains
verbs related to death (e.g. sı̌ 死 ‘die’ as in (17), zú 卒 ‘die suddenly’,
bı̀ng 病 ‘be sick’, or zı̀sha# 自杀 ‘commit suicide’ as in (18), etc.) These
verbs typically express an achievement situation, namely a process or re-
sult related to death. The property of these verbs ties in naturally with
the stative property of yě 也, thereby suggesting that dynamic yě 也 is
likely to have evolved out of this linguistic environment.
(17) 秋, 雨螽于宋, 队而死也。(4th Century BC, Zuǒzhuàn)
Qiu#, yǔ zho#ng yú Sòng, zhuı̀ ér sı̌ yě.
fall, rain locust in country-name, fall CONJ die PART
‘In the fall, Song was attacked by a plague of locusts; the locusts fell
down and died.’
(18) 夏六月庚申, 卒。鬻拳葬诸夕室。亦自杀
杀
杀也, 而葬于绖皇。
(4th Century BC, Zuǒzhuàn)
Xià liùyuè Ge#ngshe#n, zú. Yùquán zàng zhu# Xı #
shı̀.
Summer June day-name die Name bury him-in place-name
Yı̀ zı̀sha# yě, ér zàng yú dié huáng.
also suicide PART CONJ bury in dooryard underground-palace
‘In the summer, on the day of Gengshen, June, the king died.
Yuquan buried him in the Xishi and then committed suicide,
and then he was buried in the dooryard of the king’s underground
palace.’
2.2.2. Various other verbs with dynamic yě 也
Various other verbs such as huò 获 ‘obtain’, jı̀n 尽 ‘reach’, wǎngrù 往入
‘go towards and enter’, she#ng 生 ‘bear’, and lı̀ 立 ‘confer’ etc. have also
been discovered to have a clear dynamic and changing character that can
3. Following Prof. Hongming Zhang’s suggestion, the present paper analyzes the
development of yě 也 from the perspective of verb semantic types.

force a yě 也 sentence out of its static sense. In (20) the second clause wèi
jı̀n shàn yě 未尽善也 ‘have not yet reached the best’ confirms the negative
state, and the first clause yòu jı̀n shàn yě 又尽善也 ‘and has reached the
best’ confirms that it has reached the best state. The analogy from nega-
tive to a‰rmative triggers the shift from static to dynamic and the inter-
changeable use of dynamic yı̌ 矣 and yě 也 in the first part of (20) is clear
evidence of the shift.
(19) 项羽既存赵 . . . 灭秦而立侯王也, 乃徙齐王 . . . 。
(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Xiàngyǔ jı̀ cún Zhào . . .
Name already reserve country-name
miè Qı́ ér lı̀ hóuwáng yě,
destroy county-name CONJ confer leud PART
nǎi xı̌ Qı́ wáng . . . .
then move country-name king
‘Since Xiangyu has already protected the Zhao country . . .
destroyed the Qin Dynasty and conferred the title of leud on its
governor, then he moved Qi king . . .’
(20) 子谓
《韶》
：
‘‘尽美矣, 又尽善也。
’’ 谓
《武》
：
‘‘尽美矣, 未尽善也。
’’ (5th Century BC, Lúnyǔ)
Zı̌ wèi (Sháo): ‘‘Jı̀n měi yı̌,
Confucius comment song-name reach beauty PART
yòu jı̀n shàn yě.’’ Wèi (Wǔ):
again reach perfect PART comment song-name
Jı̀n měi yı̌, wèi jı̀n shàn yě.
reach beauty PART not reach perfect PART
‘Confucius praised Shao: ‘‘It has achieved the best in melody,
and has achieved the best in lyrics.’’ He viewed Wu: ‘‘It has
achieved the best in melody but hasn’t achieved the best in lyrics.’’’
2.2.3. Verbs of perception with dynamic yě 也
Another type of verb commonly used in historical texts to express the non-
stative meaning is wén 闻 ‘heard’. In the Chinese language, verbs such as
this convey the result of inherent perception, which di¤ers from the action
of pure perception. Actually, they too express an achievement situation.
Carry (1995: 95) suggests that in English the most important evidence for
32 Qianrui Chen

the resultative evolving into the perfect is the high frequency of its occur-
rence with verbs of perception and communication. Using the Old English
word gehyred ‘heard’ as an example, Carry (1995: 90–91) also demon-
strates that the subject of gehyred is not in the ‘‘heard’’ state – rather it is
in an experiential/knowledgable state as the result of an anterior percep-
tion event. The perception event implies, rather than entails, the resultant
outcome, which is cancellable and therefore shows the current relevance.
This can be described as the use of the perfect in its early stage of gram-
maticalization. In (21), the action of wén 闻 ‘hear’ has a great impact on
the subject who performed the action of wén 闻 ‘hear’. In (22), the action
of wén 闻 ‘heard’ leads the subject to express his opinion on what he has
heard, which shows that there is current relevance between the two events,
‘‘hear’’ and ‘‘express’’.
(21) 王闻群公子之死也, 自投于车下. . .
Wáng wén qún go#ngzi zhı # sı̌ yě,
King hear all son POSS die PART
zı̀ tóu yú che# xià . . .
self throw to vehicle underneath
‘The King heard of the death of all his sons, then threw himself
under a vehicle . . .’
(22) 仲尼闻魏子之举也, 以为义. . . (4th Century BC, Zuǒzhuàn)
Zhòngnı́ wén Wèizı̌ zhı # jǔ yě,
Confucius hear name POSS recommendation PART
yı̌wéi yı̀ . . .
consider righteousness
‘When Confucius heard the recommendation of Weizi,
he considered it a righteous action . . .’
2.2.4. Di¤erent verbs in the clauses with yı̌ 已 ‘already’
Di¤erent verbs can appear in the sentence with yı̌ 已 ‘already’. In (23) and
(24), both the verbs zhı̀ 治 ‘well-governed’ and chén 陈 ‘exhibit’ embody
the stative situation. In addition, in (25), the verb wéi 为 ‘become’ embodies
an abstract achievement situation. Meanwhile, in (26) and (27), the pre-
dicates bú dài 不逮 ‘not reach (standard)’ and guò 过 ‘excess’ not only
indicate the change of the state, but can also be considered adjectives
indicating the non-absolute state. Note that all the verbs in (23)–(27) are

accompanied by yı̌ 已 ‘already’, an indication that these verbs express
some sort of dynamic characteristic, such as a change of situation or an
event that has already occurred.4 The example in (26) is more intriguing:
We see a construction in which the use of yě 也 tells us that yě 也 has the
stative function to modify the whole negative sentence, and it might be
possible that yě 也 even has the dynamic function to modify the object
clause, which might be considered an example of transition from the static
function to the dynamic one.
Consequently, in Archaic Chinese, the semantic function of verbs in
the dynamic yě 也 sentence corresponds with the common path of the
grammaticalization of the perfect marker in its early stage, i.e., the perfect
function is compatible with the typical dynamic achievement situation,
especially with verbs that express the meaning to die and to hear. The
following examples provide evidence as to how meaning shifts from static
to dynamic.
(23) 子治天下, 天下既已治也。(before 3rd Century, Zhua#ngzı̌5)
Zı̌ zhı̀ tia#nxià, tia#nxià jı̀ yı̌ zhı̀ yě.
You govern country country since already well-governed PART
‘Since you have been governing the country, the country has been
well-governed.’
(24) 师金曰：‘‘夫刍狗之未陈也, . . . 及其已陈也, 行者践其首脊. . .’’
(before 3rd Century, Zhua#ngzı̌)
Shı #jı #
n yue#: ‘‘Fu# chú gǒu zhı # wèi chén yě, . . .
Name say PART weed dog POSS not exhibit PART
Jı́ qı́ yı̌ chén yě, xı́ngzhě jiàn qı́ shǒu jı̌ . . .’’
until it already exhibit PART, passerby step its head spine
‘Shijin said: ‘‘Before, the dog made of weeds was not o¤ered as a
sacriﬁce to the gods . . . After the exhibition ended, the dog was
discarded and stepped on by the passersby . . .’’’
4. Jiang (2004)’s study identiﬁes the co-occurrence of yı̌ 已 ‘already’ and yě 也
from (23) to (26).
5. Although the earliest annotated version of Zhua#ngzı̌ was complied in the 3rd
Century, Zhua#ngzı̌ is commonly used as a data source for Archaic Chinese.
34 Qianrui Chen

(25) 今已为物也, 欲复归根, 不亦难乎！
(before 3rd Century, Zhua#ngzı̌)
Jı #n yı̌ wéi wù yě, yù fù guı # ge#n,
now already become thing PART want again return root
bú yı̀ nán hu#!
not also hard PART
‘Now you are someone who is controlled by things, isn’t it hard for
you to return to your original state?’
(26) 今太子闻光壮盛之时, 不知吾形已不逮也, 幸而教之曰. . .
(1st Century BC, Zhànguócè)
Jı #n tàizı̌ wén Gua#ng zhuàng shèng zhı # shı́,
now prince hear name strong ﬂourishing POSS time
bù zhı # wú xı́ng yı̌ bù dài yě,
not know I body already not reach PART
xı̀ng ér jiào zhı # yue# . . .
luckily CONJ teach him say
‘Now the prince only knows who I was when I was young but does
not know that I have become too old to be helpful. Fortunately,
I told him that . . .’
(27) 臣不亲, 百姓不宁, 则忠敬不足而富贵已过也。
Chén bù qı #
n, bǎixı̀ng bù nı́ng,
o‰cers not close people not peaceful
zé zho#ng jı̀ng bù zú
because faith respect not enough
ér fù guı̀ yı̌ guò yě.
CONJ richness luxury already excess PART
‘O‰cers are not close to the monarch and the people do not have
peace, because loyalty and respect are lacking whereas wealth and
luxury are excessive.’
The following sections (2.2.5–2.2.8) focus on the function of the perfect
marker including current relevance, temporal reference, and information
status.

2.2.5. Dynamic yě 也 used in cause-result context
Clauses with dynamic yě 也 mostly have a cause-result relationship with
the context in which they are used. In (21) and (22) the events in the
yě 也 clauses present the causes for the succeeding events. In comparison,
the yě 也 clause in (28) serves as the succeeding event and also the indirect
result of the causal event. And in (29) the causal event serves as a hypo-
thesis, something that is found infrequently in Archaic Chinese. These
examples are congruent with the function of other perfect markers, which
generally occur in a cause-result discourse and strengthen the cause-result
relationship.
(28) 孔子曰：‘‘. . .太伯之吴, 遂生源也。
’’
(1st Century BC, Shiji)
Kǒngzı̌ yue#: ‘‘. . . Tàibó zhı #Wú, suı̀ she#ng Yuán yě.’’
Confucius say name go country-name so born name PART
‘Confucius said: . . . Taibo went to Wu, so Yuan was born.’
(29) 宣子曰：‘‘秦获穿也, 获一卿矣。秦以胜归, 我何以报？
’’
Xua#nzı̌ yue#: ‘‘Qı́n huò Chua#n yě,
Name say country-name gain person PART
huò yı̀ qı #ng yı̌. Qı́n yı̌ shèng guı #
,
gain one minister PART country-name with success return
wǒ hé yı̌ bào?’’
I what with repay
‘Xuanzi said: If Qin captures Chuan, it has just captured a minister.
If Qin wins the war, with what should I repay it?’
2.2.6. Dynamic yě 也 clauses functioning as temporal reference
Besides indicating a change in the situation and providing a cause of the
succeeding clause, the yě 也 clause also functions as a temporal reference
introducing old information. In (30), Wǔ hóu zú 武侯卒 ‘Wuhou died’ is
new information, so yě 也 is not attached to the end of this phrase, but
when this event is mentioned again, it becomes old information, thus the
yě 也 in Wǔhóu zú yě 武侯卒也 ‘Wuhou has died’ is attached to refer
back to the event. Such a pattern becomes more apparent in (31). The
two clauses (Wúwáng nǎi yǔ qı́ huı #
xià zhuàngshı̀ shù qia#n rén yè wáng qù
吴王乃与其麾下壮士数千人夜亡去 ‘Wuwang ﬂed with his commen-
ders and soldiers’ and Wúwáng zhı #qı̀ qı́ ju#n wáng yě 吴王之弃其军亡也
36 Qianrui Chen

‘Wuwang abandoned his army and fled’ refer to the same event. The first
clause describes the event of fleeing (new information) without yě 也;
when the second clause mentions the event again, yě 也 is attached to the
end of the clause because it is now old information. Notice that the fleeing
event in the second clause serves as a temporal reference and the cause of
the event in the following clause ‘‘his army collapsed’’.
(30) 武侯卒, 子罃立, 是为惠王。惠王元年, 初, 武侯卒也,
子罃与公中缓争为太子。(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Wǔhóu zú, Zı̌yı #
ng lı̀, shı̀ wéi Hùiwáng.
king-name die name enthrone this be king-name
Huı̀wáng yuán nián, chu#, Wǔhóu zú yě,
King-name first year early king-name die PART
Zı̌yı #
ng yǔ Go#ngzhònghuǎn zhe#ng wéi tàizı̌.
name and name compete be crown-prince
‘Wuhou died. His son Ziying ascended the throne and became
Hui wang. In the first year of Huiwang’s rule, when Wuhou died,
Ziying competed with Gongzhonghuan to be the crown prince.’
(31) 于是吴王乃与其麾下壮士数千人夜亡去, . . .吴王之弃其
军亡也, 军遂溃。(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Yúshı̀ Wúwáng nǎi yǔ qı́ huı #
xià zhuàngshı̀
So king-name then with its command soldier
shù qia#n rén yè wáng qù, . . .
several thousand person night escape go
Wúwáng zhı # qı̀ qı́ ju#n wáng yě,
king-name POSS abandon its army flee PART
ju#n suı̀ kuı̀.
army then collapsed
‘Therefore Wuwang and a few thousand of his soldiers fled during
the night. . . When Wuwang abandoned his army and fled, his army
collapsed.’
2.2.7. Dynamic yě 也 clauses introducing new information
This study also finds some clauses in which dynamic yě 也 introduces new
information, although such examples are not common. For instance, the
yě 也 clauses in (32)–(34) narrate sequential historical events with ‘‘fled’’,
‘‘commit suicide’’ and ‘‘enter’’ as new information. Apparently this type of

yě 也 is quite di¤erent from the dynamic particle yı̌ 矣. Yı̌ 矣 can be used
to indicate an event that happened a long time ago and then confirm its
current relevance. Yě 也 in (32)–(34), on the other hand, introduces new
information, similar to sentence final le了 indicating a change of situation
in Modern Chinese. Nonetheless, this is not a typical characteristic of the
perfect marker, which usually appears in the latest stage of the develop-
ment of a perfect marker and is closer to the function of a perfective
marker.6
(32) 问其名居, 不告而退, 遂自亡也。(4th Century BC, Zuǒzhuàn)
Wèn qı́ mı́ng ju#, bú gào ér tuı̀,
Ask it name location not tell and leave
suı̀ zı̀ wáng yě.
then self escape PART
‘(Zhaodun) asked for his name and his hometown, but he left
without getting a reply and then fled.’
(33) 子恶闻之, 遂自杀也。(4th Century BC, Zuǒzhuàn)
Zı̌’è wén zhı #
, suı̀ zı̀sha# yě.
Name hear it so suicide PART
‘Zi’e heard it and then committed suicide.’
(34) 欲以激励应侯。应侯惧, 不知所出。蔡泽闻之, 往入秦也。
(1st Century BC, Shı̌jı̀)
Yù yı̌ jı #lı̀ Yı̀nghóu. Yı̀nghóu jù, bù zhı # suǒ chu#.
Want with stimulate name name scared not know where out
Càizé wén zhı #
, wǎng rù Qı́n yě.
Name hear it go enter country-name PART
‘(Zhaowang) wanted to motivate Yinghou, but Yinghou was
scared and didn’t know what to do. Caize heard it, and then went
into Qin.’
6. Givón (2001: 293–297) argues that anterior is the most complicated and subtle
aspect. It has the following four characteristics: anteriority, perfectivity, lin-
gering relevance, and sequentiality. Lingering relevance is equivalent to cur-
rent relevance. Perfectivity includes the aforementioned properties of dynamic
state and change. Anteriority refers to the function of providing a timeline and
signifies that an event has happened before a certain point in time. Sequentiality
refers to whether a description of an event follows the timeline of that event.
38 Qianrui Chen

2.2.8. Yě 也 used with adverbs indicating future time
Yě 也 is also used with adverbs indicating future time like jia#ng 将 ‘be
going to’ and dài 殆 ‘almost’ as shown in (35) and (36) taken from
Archaic Chinese sources. This use of yě 也 is di¤erent from the typical
dynamic and static uses and was later to independently develop a future
function in Early Modern Chinese. Luo (1994) has pointed out that yě 也
was used to refer to changes in the future in Early Modern Chinese,
and Jiang (2004) also mentioned that the same use of yě 也 appeared in
Medieval Chinese.
(35) 子贡闻之曰：‘‘. . . 夫子殆将病也。
’’ (1st Century BC, Lı̌jı̀i)
Zı̌gòng wén zhı # yue#: ‘‘. . . Fu#zi dài jia#ng bı̀ng yě.’’
Name hear it say Confucius probably will be-sick PART
‘Zigong heard it and said: Confucius is going to fall ill.’
(36) 夫子曰：‘‘. . .予殆将死也。
’’ (1st Century BC, Lı̌jı̀i)
Fu#zi yue#: ‘‘. . .Yú dài jia#ng sı̌ yě.’’
Confucius said I probably will die PART
‘Confucius said: . . . I am probably going to die.’
As mentioned above, it is reasonable to assume that dynamic yě 也
engendered the perfect function because it underwent the same process of
grammaticalization as the development of the perfect marker in English
and other languages.
3. The development of dynamic yě 也 in Medieval Chinese and
Early Modern Chinese
3.1. The use of dynamic yě 也 in Medieval Chinese (from 1st Century
to 6th Century)
In this section, the use of dynamic yě 也 in three Medieval Chinese texts is
explored. Wei (2002) found at least ﬁve sentences using dynamic yě 也 in
a Buddhist scripture entitled Fóběn Xı́ngjı́jı #ng 佛本行集经 ‘The Collective
Sutra of the Buddha’s Past Acts’ translated in the Sui Dynasty (557–581).
The present author collected 11 sentences in So#ushénjı̀ 搜神记 ‘Anecdotes
about Spirits and Immortals’7 from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420) and
7. Even though it has been mixed with many new words developed in later
history, So#ushénjı̀ has been widely used as a data source and thus still has a
comparative value. In So#ushénjı̀, Long (2004: 165) found 12 sentences of the
dynamic use of yě 也, Jiang (2004) found 22 sentences.

at least 15 sentences in Lùnhéng 论衡 ‘Critical Discussions’ from the Eastern
Han Dynasty (25–220). Compared to the use of dynamic yě in Archaic
Chinese, the frequency of dynamic yě 也 in Medieval Chinese shows an
increase but still remains sparse.
In the text of Lùnhéng, we have found some new characteristics of the
usage of yě 也 which may be of developmental signiﬁcance. First, yě 也 is
used in yǒu 有 ‘have’ sentences to express the absolute stative situation, as
in (37) and (38). Second, yě 也 is used with verbs like xı́ng 行 ‘move’ as
in (39) to express an activity situation. Third, yě 也 is frequently used
with yı̌ 已 ‘already’ as in (38) and (39).8
(37) 陈仲子. . . 三日不食, 耳无闻, 目无见也。. . . 三咽然后
耳有闻, 目有见也。(1st Century, Lùnhéng)
Chénzhòngzı̌ . . . sa#n rı̀ bù shı́, ěr wú wén,
Name three day not eat ear not hear
mù wú jiàn yě . . . Sa#n yàn ránhòu ěr yǒu wén,
eye not see PART Three gulp then ear have hear
mù yǒu jiàn yě.’’
eye have see PART
‘Chenzhongzi . . . starved himself for three days, and then he could
neither hear, nor see. . . . After eating three plums he got back to his
senses of hearing and vision.’
(38) 《尚书》
曰 ‘‘诗言志, 歌咏言’’, 此时已有诗也。
(1st Century, Lùnhéng)
Shàngshu# yue# ‘‘Shı # yán zhı̀, ge# yǒng yán’’,
Book-name say poem express ideal song sing word
cı̌ shı́ yı̌ yǒu shı # yě.
that time already have poem PART
‘In Shangshu it said: ‘‘To compose a poem is to show ambition and
[to compose] a song is to show feeling.’’ At that time, poems existed
already.’
(39) 列星着天, 天已行也。(1st Century, Lùnhéng)
Liè xı #
ng zhuó tia#n, tia#n yı̌ xı́ng yě.
Arranged star cling-to sky sky already move PART
‘When the stars are in the sky, the sky has been moving.’
8. Jiang (2004) found seven sentences in the texts of Lùnhéng where yě 也 and
yı̌ 已 ‘already’ co-exist.
40 Qianrui Chen

The examples of dynamic yě 也 collected in So#ushénjı̀ appear in abso-
lute stative situations, like wúfù 无复 ‘no longer have’ in (40), and in sta-
tive situations, like kě zhı #可知 ‘be able to know’ in (41), which includes
both an auxiliary and a mental verb. The dynamic meaming of yě 也 in
those sentences is made evident in contrast to the antecedent clause.
(40) 虽强语笑, 无复气味也。(3rd Century, So#ushénjı̀)
Suı # qiǎng yǔ xiào, wúfù qı̀wèi yě.
Although force speak smile no-longer-have taste PART
‘Even though she forced herself to smile, she had lost her style.’
(41) 或曰：
‘‘投女则船为进。
’’ 皆曰：
‘‘神意已可知也。
. . .’’
(3rd Century, So#ushénjı̀i)
Huò yue#: ‘‘Tóu nü
ˇ zé chuán wéi jı̀n.’’
Some say throw women so boat be go
Jie# yue#: ‘‘Shén yı̀ yı̌ kě zhı# yě. . .’’
all say god intention already can know PART
‘Somebody suggested: Let’s throw women in the river, so that
the ship can get through. Others said: We already know God’s
intention.’
In Fóběn Xı́ngjı́jı #
ng, dynamic yě 也 is found to be used with new types
of verbs in di¤erent situations. For instance, qı̌ng 请 ‘invite’ in (42) is used
with yě 也 in an activity situation and zhı # 知 ‘know’ in (43) in a stative
situation.
(42) 彼等问言：‘‘大德沙门, 是谁所请？
’’ 佛即报言：
‘‘汝辈和上, 已请我也。
’’ (6th Century, Fóběn Xı́ngjı́jı #
ng)
Bı̌děng wèn yán: ‘‘Dà dé sha#mén, shı̀ shéi suǒ qı̌ng?’’
they ask speak big virtue monk is who PART invite
Fó jı́ bào yán:
Buddha at-once report say
‘‘Rǔ bèi héshàng, yı̌ qı̌ng wǒ yě.’’
you fellow monk already invite me PART
‘They asked: ‘‘Who invited the eminent monk?’’ Buddha answered:
‘‘The monks have already invited me.’’’
(43) 世尊已知我名也。(6th Century, Fóběn Xı́ngjı́jı #
ng)
Shı̀zu#n yı̌ zhı# wǒ mı́ng yě.
honored-person already know my name PART
‘The honored person already knew my name.’

It appears that dynamic yě 也 had existed at least by the time of
Medieval Chinese (from 1st Century to 6th Century). Although some
slight changes occurred to the situation-type dynamic yě 也, aspectual
yě 也 is still the same as it was in Archaic Chinese due to the lack of the
new types of verbs mentioned above, and the low frequency of dynamic
yě 也. There is no remarkable di¤erence between dynamic yě 也 in
Chinese traditional secular documents and Chinese versions of Buddhist
scriptures in Medieval Chinese, although the frequency of yě 也 in the
Chinese traditional secular documents is higher.
3.2. The use of dynamic yě 也 in Early Modern Chinese. (from 7th
Century to 18th Century)
This section explores the use of dynamic yě 也 in Zǔtángjı́ 祖堂集
‘Collection of Buddhist Texts’ in Early Modern Chinese. Several studies
(including this paper) have counted the frequency of dynamic yě 也 in
Zǔtángjı́. The results are displayed in Table 1.
Table 1. Frequencies of dynamic yě 也 in Zǔtángjı́
Studies Number of dynamic yěs 也
Wei (2002: 495) 255
Long (2004: 165) 234
Jiang (2004) 312
This Paper 227
The di¤erent frequencies of yě 也 collected from the same text, Zǔtángjı́,
reﬂect di¤erent understandings of yě’s 也 dynamic usage. For example,
both Wei (2002: 510) and Long (2004: 165) deem sentences (44) and (45)
to be expressing the dynamic usage of yě 也, but this paper treats yě 也 in
these two sentences as static since they are direct answers to questions
about age. Only the yě 也 in (46) is considered dynamic, based on the
temporal reference poin jı #
nnián 今年 ‘this year’ located in the result clause
connecting the result from the past to the time of speaking. Hence, care
should be taken when considering the use of dynamic yě 也 in a context
where stative yě 也 plays a dominant role.9
9. Ohta (1988: 151) thinks that the most frequent use of yě 也 is the stative
yě 也.
42 Qianrui Chen

(44) 师问僧：‘‘此水牯牛年多少？
’’ 僧无对。师云：‘‘七十七也。
’’
(9th Century, Zǔtángjı́)
Shı # wèn se#ng: ‘‘Cı̌ shuı̌gǔniú nián duo#shǎo?’’
Master ask monk this water-bu¤alo year how-many
Se#ng wú duı̀. Shı # yún: ‘‘Qı #shı́qı # yě.’’
monk not answer master say seventy-seven PART
‘The Master asked the monk: ‘‘How old is this water bu¤alo?’’
The monk could not tell. The Master told him: ‘‘Seventy-seven
years old.’’’
(45) 师乃问毱多曰：‘‘汝年几岁耶？
’’ 子曰：‘‘年十七岁也。
’’
Shı # nǎi wèn Júduo# yue#: ‘‘Rǔ nián jı̌suı̀ ye#?’’
Master so-then ask name say you year how-old PART
Zı̌ yue#: ‘‘Nián shı́qı # suı̀ yě.’’
He say year seventeen year PART
‘The Master then asked Juduo: ‘‘How old are you?’’ He answered:
‘‘I am seventeen.’’’
(46) 师云：
‘‘那个师僧若在, 今年七十四也。
’’
Shı # yún: ‘‘Nà gè shı #se#ng ruò zài,
Master say that classiﬁer monk if alive
jı #n nián qı #shı́sı̀ yě.’’
this year seventy-four PART
‘The Master said: ‘‘If that monk is still alive, he should be seventy-
four years old this year.’’’
Inspired by the theories of prototype and grammaticalization, this paper
proposes that the prototypical uses of dynamic and static yě 也 are quite
di¤erent, and the non-prototypical uses are hard to determine and may
have di¤erent readings.
The following part discusses the use of dynamic yě 也 in Zǔtángjı́ and
its gramaticalization into a perfect marker.

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:

Joka surman toisi,
Sultahan sen saisin!…
Vaan ei kullan luokse kuulu ääneni,
Kujerrus ei ehdi armahalleni,
Kuuset mua vaan on kuulemassa,
Hongan oksat vastaan huokaamassa!
Kun hän oli laulun lopettanut, näki hän vihdoin kaivatan Juhanan
tulevan tietä pitkin. Ilosta sykähti Elsan sydän. Neito ei voinut
mitenkään pysyä kamarissa, vaan riensi pirttiin ja olis juossut
kartanolle ellei kaksi renkiä olis siellä toiminut. Vihdoin astui Juhana
sisään ja sulki rintaansa vasten kauniin neitosen.
"Sinä olet kauan odotuttanut itseäs", sanoi Elsa puoleksi
surullisella, puoleksi leikillisellä äänellä, hellästi silmäillen Juhanan
jaloa katsantoa, jolle surumielisyys ja lempi antoivat liikuttavan
väreen.
"Olihan vähän estettä kotonani", sanoi Juhana, koettaen hymyllä
salata todellista, surullista mieli-alaansa.
"Oi Juhana", sanoi Elsa, joka huomasi lemmittynsä alakuloisuuden,
"mitä on tapahtunut? Isäsi on sulle varmaanki ollut kova".
"Mitäpä tuota salaan", virkkoi Juhana. "Hän syyttää mua siitä, että
olen lähdöstä Käkisalmeen antanut tiedon Hovilaisille. Mieleni tosin
teki ilmaista, vaan en kuitenkaan sitä tehnyt. Kun kielsin isälleni
ilmoittaneeni, kutsui isäni mua valhettelijaksi ja raukaksi, koska en
tekoani juljennut tunnustaa ja sanoi, ettei hän mua silmäinsä edessä
suvaitse, ennenkun hän saa kuulla, että retki jonku muun kun minun
kautta on tullut ilmaistuksi. Oi Elsa! Paholainen on varmaan

pauloihinsa isäni mielen kietonut. Äitini on surusta ja pelvosta
sängyn omainen".
Neidon posket olivat Juhanan puhuessa vaalenneet. Äkkiä veri
niihin taas kohosi.
"Juhana", lausui Elsa. "Sinä olet syyttömästi saanut kärsiä. Jos se,
joka retkestä ilmoitti, olis tiennyt, että sinua siitä syytetään, niin olis
hän heti itsensä ilmoittanut. Mutta nyt hän sen tekee heti sinulle
tässä".
"Kuinka?" lausui Juhana hämmästyen. "Sinäkö olisit ilmoittanut?"
"Juuri minä", virkkoi Elsa. "Kun näin sinun tuskasi heidän lähtönsä
johdosta; kun kuulin, että ainoa pelastuskeino olisi antaa tieto
lähdöstä Hovilaisille, niin päätin ainoaa keinoa koettaa. Minä lähetin
Saarelan Pekan viemään kirjeen Hovilaan ja käskin hänen heti
kirjeen jätettyä tulla pois ilmottamatta, mistä se oli. Niin on hän
tehnytki".
"Oi armas Elsani! Mitäs olet tehnyt?" sanoi Juhana tuskallisesti.
"Jos saavat tietää, että sinä olet heidän vehkeensä ilmituonut, niin
olet hukassa. Meidän pitää varoittaa Saarelan Pekkaa ilmoittamasta,
mistä kirje oli".
"Ja sinä siis saisit kärsiä viattomasti!" lausui innostunut neito. "Ei,
Juhana! Minä ai'on ilmoittaa tekoni ja silloin olet sinä pelastettu".
"Jumalan nimessä, Elsa, mitä ajattelet?" huudahti Juhana.
"Minä ajattelen sitä, mikä oikein on", virkkoi Elsa vakavasti.

"Sinä teet sekä sinun että minun onnettomaksi, jos ilmoitat tekosi.
Vaan jos minä olen muka syypää, niin ei vaino sinua kohtaa. Jos sinä
ilmoitat itsesi, niin luulevat kuitenki, että minä olen puheellani
tekoosi vaikuttanut, niinkuin valitettavasti olenki".
"Juhana", lausui Elsa totisesti; "sinä olet sanonut, että totuus on
korkein, mitä elämässä tulee noudattaa; totuus toisia ja itseään
kohtaan. Jumala on totuuden kirkas lähde ja hänessä, joka aina
totuutta puhuu ja puollustaa, on jotaki jumalanmoista; niinhän olet
sanonut. Vaan valhe ja petollisuus ovat kaikista paheista
inhottavimmat. Vaaditko nyt, että antaisin sun syyttömästi kärsiä
isäsi epäluuloa, kun juuri minä olen syyllinen? Vaaditko, että soisin
kalliin äitisi sairastaa ja kyyneleitä vuodattaa sun vuokses, kun voin
sun pelastaa?"
"Mutta ajattele mitä seurata voi, jos asiasta ilmoitat", virkkoi
tuskallisesti Juhana.
"Mitä seurata voi, se on Jumalan kaikkivaltiaan kädessä. Hän
suojelee mua, niinkuin tähänkin saakka", sanoi neito ja kohotti
kalpean kauniin muotonsa korkeutta kohden.
"Mun ihana impeni", huudahti Juhana innostuen; "sinä et saa
kärsiä sen vuoksi, että hyvän teon olet tehnyt. Meidän täytyy
välttämättömästi miettiä joku keino, jonka avulla voit tästä
pälkähästä päästä".
Juhana tuskin oli saanut nämä sanat sanotuiksi, ennenkuin pirtistä
kuului jalkojen kopina. Nuoret rakastavaiset kavahtivat, kuullessaan
Sipon ja Yrjön äänet.

"Hän on varmaanki täällä", lausui Sipo, "valittamassa Elsalle
ilkeästä isästään. Voinko hyvä olla. Oma vereni on mun pettänyt".
"Jos joku jäsen on pahennukseksi, niin on paras se pois leikata,
sanoo raamattu", lausui Yrjö.
Elsa tämän kuultuaan, horjui ja vaaleni. Ennenkuin Juhana voi
aavistaakaan, töytäsi neitonen auki kamarin oven, astui pirttiin ja
lausui: "Juhana on syytöin. Minä olen retkestänne ilmoittanut
Hovilaisille ja tahdon siitä rangaistuksen kärsiä".
"Elsa", huudahti Nevalainen. "Sinä ilmoittanut! — Se ei ole
mahdollista. Poikani kohtalo nuo sanat huulillesi toi. Hän on syyllinen
ja sinä syytöin. Vain kuinka, Juhana?" jatkoi Sipo poikaansa
kääntyen.
"Elsa on syytöin", kuului Juhanan tuskallinen vastaus.
"Ja sinä siis syyllinen", lausui Sipo.
"Hän on syytöin", huudahti Elsa, "Minä ilmoitin menostanne
kirjeen kautta ja kirjeen vei —
"Ah Elsa, Elsa", huusi Juhana. "Minä rukoilen sinua polvillani: älä
tee itses ja minun onnettomaksi tuommoisia puhumalla".
"Voithan siskoni pelastaa", virkkoi Yrjö. "Sano että olet syypää, niin
uskomme sinua enemmän kun siskoani. Ei vaimonpuolen ois luullut
olevan niin rohkean".
"Hän ei saa eikä voi syypääksi rueta, koska hän on viatoin", lausui
Elsa kuumeellisella innolla. "Yrjö voipi tiedustella Saarelan Pekalta
lähemmin tästä asiasta; hän kirjeen vei.

"Nyt armahani", sanoi Elsa hellästi, kääntyen Juhanaan, "nyt olet
pelastettu".
Hän ojensi kumpaisetki kätensä lemmittyänsä kohden, astui
askeleen eteenpäin ja vaipui hiljaa lattialle. Hän oli pyörtynyt.
Juhana murheesta tuskaantunut, heittäysi polvilleen armaan
neidon viereen; sitten hän hyppäsi ylös ja loi tuiman silmäyksen
isäänsä ja Yrjöön. "Hän kärsii samoin kun onnetoin isänmaansa sen
vuoksi, että hän sitä rakastaa eikä suo sille pahaa tapahtuvan",
lausui Juhana pitkään. "Se, joka syytöin on, heittäköön hänen
päälleen ensi kiven".
"Nyt on kyllin nähty ja kuultu tällä kerta", lausui Nevalainen.
Hän astui ulos. Yrjö häntä seurasi.
"Olis suotavinta, että tuo rakkauden väli loppuisi aikoinaan",
virkkoi
Sipo Yrjölle.
"Koetetaan niin", sanoi Yrjö.
"Minä surkuttelen sun kaunista sisartas", lausui Sipo. "Poikani on
syy tähänki onnettomuuteen".
Sipo meni nyt kotiinsa. Juhana seisoi vaaleana kuin kuolo Elsan
vieressä. Vihdoin tämä heräsi tainnuksistaan. Juhana painoi muiskun
kalpean morsiamensa huulille ja lausui sitte: "Nyt menen Saarelan
Pekan luo varoittamaan hänet julkaisemasta käynnistään Hovilassa.
Jos hän kieltää, ei sinua voida syyttää. Mutta voi kuitenki että asiasta
ilmoitit!"

Näin sanottuaan suuteli Juhana Elsaa ja läksi kotiinsa astumaan.
Täällä odotti häntä uusi suru. Hänen rakas äitinsä oli äkkiä kuollut.
Sipo seisoi äänetöinnä vaimonsa ruumiin ääressä eikä ensin
huomannut Juhanaa, joka heittäysi polvilleen ruumiin eteen. Hetken
kuluttua kohosi huokaus Sipon rinnasta. Hän astui ulos, salatakseen
kyyneleet silmissään.

X.
Vierasmies, joka puhumattaki voi todistaa.
Kolme viikkoa oli kulunut edellä kerrotusta. Nevalaisen vaimo oli
hautaan laskettu. Isä ja poika tunsivat kipeästi, minkä uskollisen
tukeen he olivat menettäneet.
Simo Affleck viipyi vielä Kajaanissa, vaan huhu kertoi hänen
aikovan sieltä palata niin pian, kuin järvet jäätyisivät. Sanottiin
hänen silloin tulevan joukon kanssa Nurmeslaisia jälleen
kuuliaisuuteen saattamaan ja rankaisemaan. Hovilassa löytyi 21
kuormaa majurin tavaraa, jotka olivat Lieksasta tuodut ja olivat
Kajaaniin vietävät. Kun nämä tavarat olivat Kajaaniin saatu, silloin
tulisi Affleck Nurmekseen.
Nurmeksen talonpojat päättivät koettaa eduksensa käyttää sitä
aikaa, joka vielä oli jäljellä, ennenkun Affleck oli palaava
Nurmekseen.
Nevalaisen käytös Karjalaista ja Turuista vastaan Käkisalmen
retkellä oli nämät aivan suututtaneet Sipoon. Tämä oli muitaki
talonpoikia kohden ruvennut kärtyisemmäksi kuin ennen ja vähitellen

oli tyytymättömyys häneen yleinen. Yrjö Sormuinen, jonka sopu
Sipon kanssa oli pintapuolinen ja jonka sydämmessä kateuden tuli
enemmän arvossa pidettyä Nevalaista kohden kyti kytemistään,
puhalteli hiljaa, varovasti tuota kytevää tulta. Niin taitavasti osasi
hän menetellä, että Sipo ei huomannut toverinsa kaksipuolista
käytöstä; ainoastaan tarkemmin huomaavaiset muista tiesivät sen,
että Yrjöä ei voisi suututtaa, jos Nevalaisesta puhuisi vaikka kuinka
pahaa.
Nurmeksen talokkaat pitivät kokouksen, jossa keskusteltiin
retkestä Hovilaa vastaan. Muuan torppari toi Nevalaiselleki sanan
siitä, että kokous pidettäisiin Karjalaisen luona. Sipo hoksasi nyt
selvästi sen, minkä hän jo oli vähin aavistanut: että talonpojilla olis
häntä vastaan nurja mieli. Koska ei Yrjö tai joku muu talokas, vaan
torppari hälle antoi kokouksesta tiedon, ymmärsi hän yskän ja päätti
kokonaan pysyä retkestä erillään.
Tämä päätös kalvoi Sipon sydäntä. Nyt, kun koston hetki oli
lähestynyt, piti hänen istua ristissä käsin ja odottaa mitä muut
toimisivat! Mitä hänen omaisensa, mitä Hovilaiset tästä ajattelisivat?
He olisivat tietysti siitä mielissään, ehkäpä surkuttelisivat häntä!
Nämät mietteet yhdeltä ja ylpeys toiselta puolen ahdistivat
Nevalaisen sydäntä. Ei hän koskaan ollut itsensä niin yksinään
tuntenut olevan kuin nyt.
Talonpoikien kokouksessa oli päätetty, että retki Hovilaa vastaan
piti tapahtuman yöllä Marraskuun 30 päivää vasten. Illalla 29 p.
kokoontuivat Nurmeslaiset Turuisen luo, josta lähtö oli tapahtuva.
Yrjö Sormuinen yksimielisesti johtajaksi.

Miehiä oli ko'olla neljättäkymmentä. Usea oli, peljäten retken
seurauksia, ollut siihen osaa ottamatta. "Aseina oli miehillä pyssyjä
ja musketteja, joita ainaki osaksi olivat saaneet sotaharjotuksiansa
varten ja myös vihollisiaan vastaan käytettäviksi, mutta jotka nyt
käännettiin omaa isäntää ja kruunun käskyläistä vastaan".[6]
Pienoisessa mökissään istui yllämainittuna iltana yksinään, niinkuin
tavallisesti, Horman Malla. Hänen edessään oli avonainen lipas, jossa
hän säilytti aarteensa. Siinä oli sekaisin kultasormuksia ja
korvarenkaita, hopealusikoita ja rahoja. Malla oli juuri (tiesi
monennenko kerran sinä päivänä) lukenut ja kädessään punninnut
nämä kaikki kalleudet. Nyt hän luki ne viimme kerran. Hän suuteli
niitä, piti niitä etempänä ja lähempänä silmäänsä, suuteli niitä
uudestaan ja pani ne vihdoin lippaasen takaisin. Nyt hän kohotti
muutaman turppaan pankon vieressä, ja laski sinne lippaan talteen.
Ulkona vinkui tuuli ja lunta satoi. Oli uuden kuun aika. Laskeunut
päivä oli jättänyt jälkeensä synkän pimeyden, jonka kuitenki
lisääntymistään lisäyvä lumivaippa lieveni.
Noita kuuli ovellaan kolme kopausta. "Kukahan näinki myöhään ja
tässä ilmassa neuvoani hakee?" jupisi hän, astui sitten oven luo ja
kysyi: "kuka siellä?"
"Avaa, noita", kuului vastaus.
"Kukas olet, sano nimes, et muutoin pääse sisään", lausui Malla.
"Sipo Nevalainen tartsee vielä kerran apuasi", kuului vastaus.
Ovi avattiin. Kalpeana, hiukset hujan hajan astui sisään
Nevalainen.

Levotoin tuli hehkui hänen silmissään.
"Noita", lausui hän, ottaen takkinsa alta esiin kauniin hopealta
hohtavan lippaan; "nyt on neuvos ja kykys tarpeesen. Talonpojat
aikovat tehdä hyökkäyksen Hovilaa vastaan. Sun pitää estää tämän
onnistumasta".
"Estää — retken onnistumasta — Sipo Nevalainenko niin puhuu?
Oletko
Hovilaisten ystäväksi ruennut?" kysyi Malla.
"En ole kenenkään ystävä — kuule noita — nyt olen niinkuin sinä
— mulla ei ole ketään, johon voin luottaa, jota voisin rakastaa, ei
edes kulta ja hopea niinkuin sinulla".
"Hm", — jupisi Malla. — "Minä ymmärrän. Sinä olet suututtanut
talonpojat".
"Minä olen heitä moniaita hävyttömästä pelkurimaisuudesta
nuhdellut; siinä kaikki. Nyt ei enään Sipoa tarvita! Oli aika, jolloin
mun apuani, mun neuvoani tarvittiin. Se aika on mennyt. — Mutta
vähät siitä. Sano miten talonpoikien retki estetään".
"Milloin se tapahtuu?" kysyi noita.
"Tän'iltana", vastasi Sipo.
"Mutta jos retki estetään, niin Hovilaiset pelastetaan suuresta
vaarasta, sillä nyt on retkelle edullinen aika", lausui Malla, tuijottaen
Nevalaiseen yhdellä silmällään.
"Aika voi vastaki olla edullinen", virkkoi Sipo.

"Vaan Affleck voi siksi palata", lausui noita.
"Olkoon miten tahansa", virkkoi Nevalainen. "Asijain nykyinen
asema on kärsimätöin; muuta se, Malla, niin tämä lipas sisustaneen
on sinun".
Malla vilhui silmällään ahnaasti tuohon hohtavaan esineesen.
"Minä voin sinua auttaa", lausui Malla painavasti. "Talonpojat
luulivat hyvin sinuttaki toimeen tulevansa. Minä lupaan että
ennenkun he Hovilaan saapuvat, tulevat he sinua avukseen
pyytämään".
"Sitä en minä usko", sanoi Sipo.
"Siinä tapauksessa et tunne Horman Mallaa", lausui noita.
"Taikausko on, Jumalan kiitos, suuri, ja sen avulla voin suurempiaki
toimeen saada. — Mene nyt levollisena kotiisi ja odota; ennenkun yö
on puolessa, olet sinä Hovilassa".
Sipo, joka ei tiennyt mitään varmempaa keinoa saada tietää
lähimmäistä tulevaisuuttaan, tytyi tähän lupaukseen, vaikk'ei hän
siihen juuri luottanut. Hän antoi lippaan noidalle ja sanoi: "Tuo on
kallis lahja; vaan tärkeä onki nyt asiani ollut. Jos tänä yönä pääsen
Hovilaan toimimaan, niin vielä tulevaisuuski on siitä yöstä kuuleva".
Niin sanottuaan erosi Nevalainen noidasta ja meni kotiinsa.
Mennessään hän jupisi: "Minä tunnen, että nyt on elämässäni
kääntökohta, johon olen ehtinyt. Seuratkoon hyvää tai pahaa,
kunhan joku muutos nykyoloissa tapahtuu".
Kaksi tuntia myöhempään kun Sipo oli noidan luona käynyt, liikkui
Nurmeksen maantiellä suurehko miesjoukko verkalleen eteenpäin.

Eturivissä astuivat Sormuinen, Karjalainen, Turuinen, Ikonen,
Nyyrinen, ja moni muu koetti aina aikatavasta tunkeuda eturiviin,
muka jotaki kysymään, vaan oikeastaan ikäänkun arvoaan
lisätäkseen.
"Eipä olisi luullut tuota", lausui muuan jykevä partasuu, "että Yrjön
sisar, siivo Elsa, olis noin juljennut veljeään ja muita pettää. Vaan
rakkaus se kaikki rakentaa, sanoi Puuperän Aatami, kun nai Tiiralan
rikkaan ruotimuorin".
"Saarelan Pekka ei tunnusta vieneensä kirjeen", sanoi Yrjö
Sormuinen, "osittain tietysti pelvosta, osittain säälien Elsaa. Minä
luulen myös että Nevalaisen Juhana on parastaan tehnyt,
tukkiakseen hältä suun. Vaan nyt, kun ollaan näin miehissä ko'ossa,
voitaisiin käydä tuolla Pekan mökissä ja pakoittaa hänet
tunnustamaan".
"Vaan jos Hovilassa myönnetään että Pekka on kirjeen tuonut, niin
ei
Pekan kielto mitään merkitse", virkkoi Karjalainen.
"Hovilassa ei oltu tuojaa tunnettu, siinäpä se ässä on", lausui
Ikonen.
"Pekka on vasta kaksi kuukautta täällä ollut".
"Hovilaiset ovat luvanneet kaksi talaria hopea-rahaa sille, joka
retkestä ilmoitti, vaan Pekka-parka ei ole uskaltanut käydä rahat
perimässä", sanoi Nyyrinen. "Jos ei mua tunnettaisi, niin kävisin
hyvänä miehenä perimässä palkinnon".
"Vaan jos otettaisiin Pekka nyt mukaan, niin Hovilaiset kyllä hänen
tuntisivat", lausui vakava Turuinen, joka ei suinkaan arvannut, että

hänen ehdoituksensa oli hyvinki arvoisa.
"Oikein. Oikein", huusivat useat. "Sehän on selkeä asia! Turuinen
on oikeassa".
Kuusi miestä poikkesi nyt kujalle, joka johti Pekan mökkiin; toiset
kulkivat verkalleen eteenpäin.
Mökin luo ehdittyään astui Sormuinen ja kaksi miehistä sisään;
muut odottivat oven takana, ollen valmiina auttamaan, jos niin
tarvittaisiin.
Pekka makasi oven suussa; hänen vaimonsa lapsen kanssa
perempänä penkillä. Kun Pekka kuuli oven avauksen, heräsi hän,
hypähti pystyyn, iski valkeaa tuluksillaan ja viritti päreen palamaan.
Sitten hän, kynsien vasemmalla kädellään pellavankarvaista
tukkaansa, ärähti: "Keitä p——leitä te olette, jotka yörauhaa
häiritsette? Totta mar, nämä Nurmeslaiset ovat lemmon joukkiota".
"Älä veikkoni noin melua", lausui Sormuinen; "meillä on vaan
vähän asiaa sulle".
"Asiaa!" ärähti Pekka. "Minkä l—mon asian aika nyt on?"
"Yö on meidän asioillemme sopivampi päivää tällä kertaa", virkkoi
Yrjö. "Kuinka on Pekka tuon kirjeen laita, jonka Hovilaan veit?
Tunnustapa nyt!"
"Tunnusta", sanoi Pekka. "Mitä höpiset?"
"Tuon arvasin", sanoi Yrjö kumppaneilleen, jatkaen Pekalle: "Sinun
pitää nyt lähteä mukaamme".

"Se on valhe", sanoi pellavatukkainen Pekka, hyppäsi rahille ja otti
seinältä luodikon. Ojentaen sen tulleita kohden, virkkoi hän: "Ulos
täältä! Tuossa on ovi. Millä oikeudella te tunkeutte asuntooni?"
Yrjö ja hänen kumppaninsa vetäysivät ovea lähemmäs,
nähdessään ojennetun pyssyn.
"Älä ylpeile", virkkoi Yrjö. "Sinä olet yksi ja meitä on kolme
näkyvissä ja kolme oven takana".
"Vaikka olis teitä viisi sisällä ja kuusi oven takana, niin ei teillä ole
oikeus puolellanne", sanoi jäykkä Pekka.
Muuan miehistä oli hiljaa hiipinyt Pekan taa ja sieppasi tämän
äkkiä kumoon. Pekan vaimo parkasi pelvosta ja lapsi rupesi
ruikuttamaan.
"Jumalan tähden", huusi vaimo. "Mitä aiotte Pekalle tehdä? Hän on
viaton".
"Hänelle ei mitään pahaa tapahdu, kun hän vaan meitä seuraa
Hovilaan", virkkoi Yrjö. "Sieltä hän kohta pääsee pois, kun on
tehtävänsä tehnyt".
"Älä tunnusta siellä. Pelasta kaunis Elsa", kuiskasi vaimo Pekalle.
Yrjö kuuli sanat ja lausui hymyillen: "Ei hänen tartse puhua
sanaakaan.
Hovilaiset sanovat vaan, jos hän on sama mies, joka kirjeen toi".
"Minä en tosiaankaan halua nyt yöllä seuraanne lähteä", sanoi
Pekka.
"Huomenna voin noutamattaki tulla".

"Kiitos lupauksesta", lausui ivaten Yrjö. "Vaan niinkuin sanottu,
tarvitsemme sua juuri nyt. Pistä siis housut jalkaasi".
Pekka ei tähänkään suostunut. Housut tukittiin väkisin hänen
jalkaansa. Takkia myöski piti muiden tukkia hänen ylleen; sitten hän
talutettiin tuvasta ulos.
Sill'aikaa kun tämä kohtaus oli suoritettu Saarelan Pekan mökissä,
oli kujan suussa odottaville talonpojille tapahtunut vielä kummempi
näytös. Kohta senjälkeen kun Yrjö seuraajineen oli eronnut Pekan
mökkiin, olivat talonpojat tiellä, noin kymmenen sylen päässä,
nähneet leimahtavan tulen. He astuivat vähän eteenpäin,
katsoakseen mikä syy oli tähän ilmiöön; vaan ei mitään he
huomanneet. Hetken kuluttua näkyi jäletysten kaksi leimausta ja
jälestä ikäänkuin miekkojen kalske. Talonpojat säikähtivät; he
astuivat taaski katsomaan, mikä oli syynä ilmiöön; vaan ei mitään
näkynyt. Ja kohta näkyi kolmannen kerran kolme väläystä ja kuului
valittava ääni, joka puhui: "Onnettomat! Mihin jätitte Sipo
Nevalaisen?"
"Mitä tämä merkitsee?" sanoi Karjalainen, jonka kalpea muoto
todisti, että rohkeus ei isommassa mitassa enään majaillut hänen
rinnassaan.
"Ei liene tämä hyvän edellä", jupisi Turuinen. "Mutta mitä meihin
koskee Nevalainen?"
"Älkäämme turhaan ajatustamme vaivatko", sanoi Ikonen. "Tuo
ilmiö merkitsi jotaki; vaan me menemme matkamme eteenpäin siitä
huolimatta".

"Minä pelkään ettemme Hovilan portin sisäpuolelle tule tänä
yönä", jupisi muuan vanhus. "Olen paljon nähnyt mailmassa ja
tiedän, että enteistä voi tulevaisuutta aavistaa".
Näille arveluille tuli äkkiä päätös, kun noita ilmausi talonpoikain
keskelle, ilman että he huomasivat tarkemmin, mistä päin hän
tulikaan. Horman Hallan kukin tunsi parhaaksi selittäjäksi tässä
asiassa; ja kun Malla oli kuullut kertomuksen ilmiöstä, jonka
kertomuksen hän varmaanki viidellä eri tavalla sai kuulla, niin hän
lyhykäisesti selitti, että Sipo Nevalainen oli se mies, joka enemmän
kuin kukaan muu voisi johtaa rynnäkköä Hovilaan ja nuhteli
talonpoikia siitä, että he niin ajattelemattomasti olivat ohitse
menneet sen miehen, jota usean heistä tuli hyväntekijänään kiittää.
Tätä puhetta koettivat jotkut vastustella, vaan kun noita ennusti
varmaa epäonnistumista retkelle, jos ei Nevalainen ollut muassa, niin
mukaantuivat kaikki siihen, että Sipo noudettaisiin kotoaan.
Päätöksen jälkeen seurasi heti teko ja piakkoon oli Sipo, joka ensin
kielsi lähtemästä, saatu mukiin.
Kun Yrjö yölliseltä syrjäretkeltään oli saapunut muiden luo, näki
hän suureksi kummastuksekseen ja harmikseen Nevalaisen muassa
olevan. Hän tervehti Sipoa kuin tavallisesti, vaan Yrjön sydämmessä
kyti kateuden liekki. Hän päätti asettaa Sipon semmoiseen asemaan,
jotta tämä ei suinkaan kiittäisi onneaan, kun oli tullut näin käskyttä
muiden mukaan. Talonpojat olivat saapuneet Hovilan kujan suuhun.
Sipo Nevalainen asettui nyt heidän eteensä ja lausui: "Meidän
sopumme ei viimme aikaan ole ollut aivan kehuttava. Syytä siihen
löytynee jos minun puolellani, niin teidänki. Vaan minä unhotan
vähät riidat ja pyydän teidän tehdä samoin. Nyt on meillä yhteinen
vihollinen ja yhteinen vaara. Väkivallalla on meitä kohdeltu ja

väkivallalla me puolestamme kohtelemme vihollisiamme. Köyhien,
orpojen ja leskien puoltajina olemme tällä hetkellä. Oikea asiamme
on, toivon ma, meille tuopa voiton. Toverit, olkaat urhoolliset! Minä
koetan tänä yönä kunnostaa nimeni. Tehkäät te samoin, niin koston
ja voiton suloisuutta saamme varmaanki nauttia".
Horman Malla, joka oli retkellä muassa, lausui: "Tähtihin on
kirjoitettu, että Nevalainen on kummia matkaan saava Hovilassa.
Olkaat hälle kuuliaiset, niin voitto on teidän, mainio voitto".
Yrjö Sormuinen, joka myöskään ei tahtonut olla muita huonompi
kehotuksissaan, sanoi: "Koston hetki on tullut. Tässä riippuu, mun
uskoni mukaan, voitto ei yksityisen, vaan kaikkien urhoollisuudesta.
Niinpäin minä tähtien kieltä tulkitsen. — Älkää säästäkö
käsivarsianne! Hakatkaat mihin vaan ulotutte. Pistetään tuohon
lemmon pesään tuli, jotta se perinpohjin hävitetyksi tulisi".
Oli sydänyön aika. Miehet alkoivat liikkua eteenpäin, läheten
Hovilan ulkohuoneita. Etupäässä astuivat Sipo Nevalainen ja noita,
joka ikääskun Nevalaisen suojelushenkenä kulki hänen sivullaan.
Nevalaisen toisella sivulla astui Yrjö Sormuinen, vakaisena, kalpeana.
Hovilassa näkyivät kaikki uneen vaipuneen ja talonpojat tulivat aivan
esteettömästi portille saakka. Tässä pysähdyttiin vielä kerran ja
tulijain parvi jaettiin kolmeen osaan, joista pienin oli jäävä portille
vartioimaan, josko mikään vaara uhkaisi; toisista yksi parvi olisi
valloittava kukin yhden niistä kahdesta rakennuksesta, joita
Hovilassa löytyi.

XI.
Yöllinen taistelu.
Hovilan tilalla oli kaksi päärakennusta: yksi isompi, jossa majurin
läheisimmät uskotut asuivat, toinen pienempi palvelusväelle ja niille
monille, jotka Jessenhaus oli pitäjäältä ko'onnut, majurin omaisuutta
varjelemaan. Muuan historioitsija kertoo tähän aikaan Hovilassa
löytyneen, pait Jessenhausia, Arnkijliä ja Finneä, kaksi
veronkantokirjuria, yhden suutarin ja 6 renkiä. Hovilan varsinainen
suojelusväki oli siis 12 henkeä, pait vielä 10 talonpoikaa, joita
Jessenhaus oli sinne nykyisin saanut.
Talonpojat, suutari ja kaksi renkiä asui pienemmässä
rakennuksessa, joka oli isompaa vastapäätä. Ulkohuoneet milt'ei
yhdistivät rakennusten sivut eli päät toisiinsa; ainoastaan pienoiset
solat erottivat toisistaan ulkohuoneet ja päärakennukset.
Talonpojat olivat, niinkuin mainittu, pysähtyneet lähellä porttia. He
jakaantuivat kolmeen parviin. Isompaan rakennukseen oli määrä
viidentoista miehen rynnätä; pienempään sama määrä; kuitenki
olivat useammat kääntyneet sille haaralle, jossa suurin vaara uhkasi;
portille jäisi viisi miestä vartioimaan.

Nyt oltiin valmiit rynnäkköön. Mutta odottamatoin tapaus pidätti
talonpoikain askeleet. Kujan suusta kuului pyssynpamaus. Kamalalta
se kajahti sydänyön hiljaisuudessa.
"Mitä hiidessä tämä merkitsee?" sanoi Yrjö Sormuinen. "Tähän asti
on ehditty ja nytkös este tulisi!"
"Minä pelkään, että itse Affleck on tulossa ja antaa merkin
Hovilaisille", sanoi Turuinen.
"Me olemme hukassa, pengon ma, jos kahden vaikean väliin
joudumme", lausui herkkätunteinen Karjalainen.
"Hukassa!" naurahti noita. "Hoitakaat te muut Affleckin joukkoa,
kyllä minä hänen itsensä hoidan". Hän otti, näin sanoen, povestaan
peilin ja lausui: "Joka tuossa näkee kuvansa, häntä polttaa helvetin
tuli, kunnes minä hänen kiusasta pelastan. Hän lupaa hädässään
tehdä mitä tahdon".
"Hsch", virkkoi Yrjö. "Kujan suusta kuuluu ääniä".
"Lempo vieköön kujansuussa olevat!" lausui Nevalainen.
"Katsokaat!
Hovilassa herättiin pamauksesta. Siellä viritettiin juuri valkea".
"Nopeus on nyt tarpeesen", sanoi Sormuinen. "Olkoonpa nyt
vaikka itse Belzebubi liikkeellä, niin emme saa vitkastella. Me
hyökkäämme heti; tulkoon perästä mitä tulee".
"Niin minäkin aattelen", sanoi Turuinen.
"Mutta jos joudumme ahdinkoon?" lausui Karjalakien.

"Päästäänhän kuitenkin pakenemaan syrjätietä", sanoi Turuinen.
Kujan suusta ei nyt kuulunut mitään.
"Parasta on, että joku meistä käväsee katsomassa, mitä tuolla
kujan suussa on", virkkoi Nevalainen. "Sitten ollaan ainaki varmaat".
"Käy, Nevalainen, katsomassa", sanoi Yrjö Sormuinen, joka heti
hoksasi, mitä tähän sopi vastata.
"Minä olen täällä tarpeesen, ettei miehet päättömiksi joudu",
vastasi
Sipo.
Noidan suu vetäysi hymyyn. "Se sattui", jupisi hän; sitten hän
lausui muutamalle, joka näytti olevan "homo novus" tässä joukossa:
"juokse kujan suuhun ja ota selko, kutka siellä ovat. Tuo heti vastaus
Hovilaan. Me ryntäämme kuitenki heti. Aika on kallis".
Noidan sana vaikutti. Talonpojat avasivat porttinsa ja hyökkäsivät
kahdessa parvissa kartanolle; yksinään riensi etupäässä isoon
rakennukseen Sipo Nevalainen. Sen joukon, joka häntä aikoi seurata,
esti Yrjö Sormuinen eteenpäin menemästä.
"Pysähtykäät!" huusi Yrjö. "Kujalla sanotaan Affleck'in olevan".
Miehet tottelivat käskyä, jonka kautta Sipo yksin tuli menemään
sisälle. Sormuinen oli tuon lauseensa tuulesta temmannut; aikomus
oli johtaa Nevalainen hengen vaaraan ja se onnistui.
"Ahaa", huusi Björn Finne, nähdessään Nevalaisen sisään
hyökkäävän. "Tässäpä tämä väkivaltaa kärsinyt ystävämme tulee
meitä tervehtimään. Aikomus lie varmaan ku'moron'ia tulla

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
ebookbell.com

Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization And Lexicalization In Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing

More Related Content

Similar to Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization And Lexicalization In Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing (20)

More from shottdulla25 (7)

Recently uploaded (20)

Newest Trends In The Study Of Grammaticalization And Lexicalization In Chinese Janet Zhiqun Xing